According to Nature
by moondusted
Summary: They call it the third outbreak, but it would be more accurate to face the truth and call it for what it is: The Final Outbreak. The red line has been drawn and crossed and drawn again only to fall once more. If these times are not desperate enough for desperate measures, then none are.
1. Through a Mirror Darkly

**Edit: **I've appended a revised timeline to the end of the chapter.

**Edit #02:** Let me make this perfectly clear: This is a AU story. Interpretation of characters and events is strictly my own.

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**Introductory: **This kicks off in the same place AC 2 and changes practically all that happened after in the AC universe.

Events of Prototype 2 mostly happened the way they do in the game.

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**ACCORDING TO NATURE**

**by moondusted**

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**1. Through a Mirror Darkly**

Vertigo clawed at Desmond's mind, it crawled up his spine and wrapped spindly fingers around his neck, warped his sense of perspective and made the room dip sideways in slow-motion. He felt himself stumble and the impending fall somehow put the room straight again. His shoulder collided with the wall and pain shot down his arm, rattling him. He put all his weight into the wall and slowly slid down, leaning heavily against it, before he remembered to check if it was smeared as well.

Nausea closed his throat down.

For long minutes, all he could do was remember how to breathe.

How the hell did he even get here? He glanced up at the gruesome painting on the walls of his room and wondered if he was seeing his own future there, mapped out in blood and desperation. And he had been given no weapon with which to fight, no hope to cling to, not even a good _reason. _

He heard the door glide open in a low, metallic growl and he didn't bother to watch his firing squad as they filed in. Altaïr was still echoing in his mind, snarling for a fight, but Desmond had nothing but ancient memories; remnants of pride and power and the sickly sweet thrill of battle. He could not _wear_ those memories. He could not. _Be. _

"Desmond," Lucy said. Her voice, his lifeline for so long, he knew it too well. He recognised the urgency in her tone, even something of well-hidden impatience. There was concern and worry and something warmer than that. He liked to think of it as affection, but he really didn't know whether he could trust his instincts anymore, when he wasn't even sure they were _his _instincts in the first place.

He clenched his teeth and dragged himself back to his feet. "About Subject Sixteen…" he begun and looked at her fast enough to see her flinch.

"He went mad," she said and while her sadness was sincere, she still wasn't telling him the whole truth.

Desmond shrugged, casually. He didn't know what else to do. What was there to say, anyway?

"I'm sorry things happened the way they did," Lucy said slowly.

"Yeah, well," he replied, looking away from her and looking over the walls again. His stomach had calmed and his balance had returned quicker than he could have hoped. He seemed fine now and from this new calm, his surrounding was trying to tell him something.

"We made a mistake with Sixteen," Lucy continued. "We thought… we thought he could be both."

"Both?"

When she didn't immediately answer, he looked back at her, this time intent on staring her down, if nothing else.

He watched her bite down on her lip, a gesture of uncertainty he hadn't expected from her.

"I got you cleared with Rikkin," she said, carefully picking her words. "I… don't know if it's not too late, but what would you say if we offered you a job?"

Desmond had expected many things, but this? Where did he even start?

"But they are Templars," he pointed out.

"Yes, but things have changed. You don't know, we should have told you, but Vidic didn't want to disturb you further. You passed out in the Animus several times. Never more than a few days at a time, but all together, you lost quite a long of time, I'm afraid."

"_What_?"

She studied him for a moment. "Can you walk? There is something I want to show you, it'll help explain things better."

"Yeah, I can walk," Desmond said. Confusion was nothing new, after all. But losing an entire year? No wonder he was feeling so strange. His sense of time must be screwed all to hell. Of course he had known they were messing with his brain, but the extent… what else had they in store for him?

He detached himself from the wall and was vaguely grateful that his legs didn't buckle. He fell in step beside Lucy and it was easier than he had expected; he followed her to the elevator. It was strange after living in the tight confines of the Animus room. He felt adrift, suddenly, lost. Where would he be going from here?

"You can talk," he prompted and sounded harsher than he had intended.

"While you were here, the world has changed," Lucy said after a moment. "Assassins and Templars are no longer enemies. That is, we have a temporary truce, because there is a more dangerous foe."

"More dangerous?" Desmond repeated. "Hard to imagine. Outside of nightmares, that is."

"Don't joke," Lucy said, giving a small sigh. "You heard about the viral outbreaks in New York City in 2009 and 2010?"

"Yeah," Desmond said slowly. "They were contained, weren't they?"

Lucy begun to nod, but then changed it to a shake of her head. "Yes, in a way, and the infection never vanished completely. However, now we are in the middle of a third outbreak. It occurred after you captured by Abstergo and it… it is still going on. It wouldn't be wrong to say it is out of control."

She faced him in the tight space of the elevator. "It's spanning the entire US East Coast and it's cropping up all over the Midwest, in Canada, in Mexico. It hasn't left the continent yet, but that's just a question of time."

The elevator stopped with a gentle tug and opened its doors to a large hall, staked with glass cubicles. Desmond stopped dead when he saw what they contained. "Is that an Animus? How many of them are there?" he asked, more to himself. "What have you been _doing _here?"

"All Animus projects are currently on hold," Lucy said. "Except yours, of course."

"Thanks for that."

"Come on."

He stalked with her through the endless rows of cubicles, one Animus after another, all of them deserted. "Is it Animuses? Animi? What do you think, Lucy?"

She gave him a sidelong frown and ignored the question. "Anyway, your Animus project, Siren, is also finished. We extracted everything we needed from you, besides, we don't really have time for more."

"I'm still not getting the connection to the outbreak thing."

She lead him around corner and stopped at another elevator. Desmond watched as she typed a password into a pad, then put her face to a scanner. The elevator opened.

"Originally, we needed the information Altaïr had about the Pieces of Eden and we still have people looking into that…"

He followed her into the elevator and the doors slid closed. The elevator set into motion with a hard lurch, accelerating rapidly. It was almost like falling.

Desmond said, "You mean like, giant mass-brainwashing-devises? Shouldn't you be fighting that?"

"One thing after the other," Lucy said, though the tightening of her mouth betrayed some her own thoughts on the matter. "Right now, we need to keep humanity _alive, _otherwise there is nothing left for any of us, either to protect or to control."

"Still…"

"It's a different battle!" Lucy snapped. "Will you let me finish?"

Desmond lifted his hands to placate her. "All right, just saying. Go on."

"All our calculations give us not even a year until the entire planet has been taken over by the Mercer virus. At that point, total extinction of humanity is expected within two months." She looked at him. "_That's _the scale. That's what we are up against. That's why we are working _with _the Templars. They have access to technology we can only dream of. They can do this, save us all. We Assassins, we won't condemn the entire species in the name of principle. We'll fight when the time comes, but for now, we are in this together."

The elevator stopped abruptly and the seconds trickled away, a longer time for the doors to open than was comfortable.

"We are here," Lucy said. "Welcome to Project Thunderbolt."

She preceded him through the door, then walked off somewhere to the left of him, where Desmond saw a group of other people around a set of desks and blinking monitoring machines. He couldn't identify what he was seeing, what any of these things actually did, but for the moment he paid it no heed.

At the centre of the room, behind walls of glass — their distortion giving away their thickness — was another Animus. A man was strapped into it, naked and motionless. Every instinct Desmond had told him the man was dead and _not _dead. Something else, something _other _than dead. Desmond took a step closer and he saw the slow rise and fall of his chest.

"What…?" he begun, too quietly to be heard by anyone. He took another step and another and before he realised what he was doing, he was standing right at the glass, close enough for its coldness to touch his face. "Who?" he corrected himself, though the answer was already right there, at the edge of his perception, fighting to break through his incredulousness. He had seen too many impossible things to disbelieve them now.

He _knew. _He had, in fact, known since he had left the elevator. The man on the Animus was familiar in ways he couldn't even describe, every patch of skin, every length of sinews, every fibre of muscles. Not _seen_ in this life, but far more intimately, down to every last twist in the very structure of his DNA.

"Altaïr."

Distantly, he recognised Lucy as she walked up to him to stand at his side. She wasn't looking at him, but at the Assassin before them.

Quietly, she said, "It's a clone, of course. His genetic information could be extracted using information gathered from you in the Animus. This is done by comparing your untampered DNA sequence with the…"

"I don't care," Desmond said, though his voice had dropped to barely a whisper.

She seemed at a loss for words, but eventually continued to speak. "We are giving him his memories from your Animus sessions. Some errors will have been introduced. The Animus is never a hundred percent precise in its details, but we all agree the overall difference between the real Altaïr and this one should be minimal."

"Lucy," Desmond said, turned his head finally to look at her. He didn't know what she would be seeing in his face, but it didn't seem to be what she expected. Her eyes widened slightly.

Desmond said, "Why?"

Different footsteps clicked somewhere behind them, where the desks were and the other equipment. He didn't recognise the person, but he had heard the voice before.

"Mr. Miles, if you stepped over here, Ms. Stillman will finish briefing you."

Altaïr's chest rose and fell in perfect rhythm. It could be sleep, if not for an emptiness that ran deeper than even coma. Desmond's earlier assessment had been right: Altaïr wasn't dead, he hadn't been born yet.

Desmond looked over his shoulder to meet the gaze of a tall, burly man. He had a boxer's build and stance, though packed in an expensive designer suit.

Desmond frowned. "You are Alan Rikkin."

Rikkin bent his head. "Indeed. I'm pleased we finally meet face to face." He made a sweeping gesture with one hand. "Please, if you stepped over here?"

Desmond walked with glacial slowness. He didn't much like Rikkin, not only because or remembered animosity. Rikkin was a man who got off on power and control. There was very little he wasn't willing to do, if he thought it necessary. Such men were always dangerous, especially when they thought your life was their prerogative.

"Let me finish the introduction," Rikkin said, amiably enough. "Ms Rebecca Crane and Mr Shaun Hastings, currently, uhm, on loan for Project Thunderbolt. Dr. Tori Wyland from Gentek has been lending a hand as well. And you are already acquainted with Dr. Vidic, I'm sure."

Rebecca gave him a grin and a wave, Shaun a curd nod. Wyland attempted smile. Vidic didn't even bother rotating his chair around to greet him, "_So_ good of you to finally join us, Mr. Miles."

"Yeah, isn't it," Desmond muttered in response to Vidic.

"And this," Rikkin added, pointing at a tall, uniformed woman in the shadows behind the group. "Is Lt. Salinger, our Blackwatch liason."

Salinger gave Desmond a short nod. She looked at Rikkin. "Can we move this along?"

For a moment, Rikkin held Salinger stare. Hostility travelled along it so strong it almost froze the air between them.

It was Rikkin who let it go with a dark frown settling on his heavy brow. He motioned Desmond on until they both stood on either side of Shaun and his computer screen.

"All there? Good," he said. "Okay, this how we all got here." He brought up a map of Manhattan. "I got this information from a friend of mine, who shall remain unnamed for the time being. This is a time-lapse vid of the second outbreak as it happened in New York. It started in Penn Station, the second like the first. Here."

The video was grainy and desaturated, it flickered uncertainly arhythmic to the race of the timestamp. Desmond couldn't quite make out where the camera was. Not the main platform to be sure, otherwise there would be more people moving through it. Instead, there was just one man, long-limbed and casual, his face partially hidden under the shadow of a hood. He stopped and the camera jumped a few times, missing transitory moments of him. He stood, with his back to the camera, _blink _and crouching and _blink again _facing the camera. He pulled in on himself, Desmond couldn't quite describe what he was seeing. The video jumped again and the man uncoiled suddenly in streaks of bright red, even in the lousy video. The red writhed as it flooded away from him, boiled like a living thing. Before Desmond had time to wonder what he was seeing, the man did it again. Then straightened and gave the camera a quick, though still markedly triumphant look.

"What the hell was that?" Desmond asked.

"The long or the short?"

"The one I'll understand."

Shaun resettled his glasses, arching a brow. "In that case, well. Let me think. This. Not man. This. Blacklight virus. Making outbreak. Clear?"

"Don't be an ass," Rebecca said.

"Don't waste our time," added Salinger who seemed to have abandoned her place and sidled up to stand behind them.

"Just doing what I can," Shaun said, unimpressed. "The second outbreak was worse than the first, but it sort of petered out. No one knows how or why." He made a gesture with one hand that could be aimed on anyone, Blackwatch, Abstergo, Gentek. "Those guys will tell you differently, but that's just posturing, they don't know either. Regardless, half a year ago, this happens."

He brought up another video. The same camera as before, same angle and clearly the same place. Even the timestamp shows almost the same numbers when the _same fucking man _walks into the picture again. This time, however, he was coming directly at the camera, as if playing to an audience. He stood for a moment motionless, so motionless to Desmond's new senses it screamed unnatural on so many levels. If he had reached right past the screen in that moment, Desmond would have been barely surprised.

Slowly, in contrast to the other video, the man spreads out his hands and the same streaks of red crawls along his arms and drip from his fingertips. It didn't quite look like blood, though something similar, something organic and twitching. Desmond's had been searching for the word before, but now it came to him suddenly. Alive, whatever it was, it was _alive_.

"The third outbreak?" Desmond asked, though somewhat unnecessarily.

"The third outbreak," Shaun confirmed. "And this one didn't wear off on it's own." He quit the video and brought up a map of the US. "This is where we're at right now."

Before Desmond's eyes, the map turned red. It crawled along the coast, thin tendrils at first, then in broader strokes.

"By the time we grounded all flights, it was already on the East Coast. We've managed to contain and eradicate it in airports of Madrid and Berlin. It hasn't crossed the Atlantic," Salinger supplied.

Desmond stepped away from the desk and turned around, looked from Salinger to Rikkin to Lucy and back.

"What about Altaïr?" he asked.

There was a moment's silence while the assorted scientists and alpha animals sorted out who got to answer that particular question. In the end, it was Lucy who answered. She said, "A perfect warrior for the worst kind of war."

Unconvinced, Desmond said, "Wasn't that whole outbreak thing not something straight out from a zombie b-movie? I mean, Altaïr was pretty good at killing, but that's… uh, not quite his area of expertise."

"You have good intel," Salinger observed.

"And if he didn't, we would be giving it," Rikkin said, raising his voice just a little.

"Blackwatch will fight the ground war," Lucy said. "Altaïr, he…" she paused if she didn't quite know how to say it. "He will have only one target. One assassination, if you will."

Desmond narrowed his eyes. A part of him already knew where this was going, had perhaps suspected it for some time. He wasn't stupid, the pieces were all there. "You want Altaïr to hunt Mercer," he said.

It was not a question and the silence that followed would have been all the answer he needed.

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_End of Chapter 1_

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**Reference:**

_"So you want to live 'according to nature?' Oh, you noble Stoics, what a fraud is in this phrase! Imagine something like nature, profligate without measure, indifferent without measure, without purpose and regard, without mercy and justice, fertile and barren and uncertain at the same time."_ — Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche [Note: truncation of the quote somewhat alters its meaning.]

_"Through a Mirror Darkly"_ — The Bible, King James Version

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**Altered Timeline:**

2008 **First Outbreak **(events of Prototype 1)

2010 **Second Outbreak **(events of Prototype 2)

early 2011 **Desmond abducted by Abstergo**

mid 2011-late 2012 **Project Siren **(events of Assassin's Creed 1)

early 2012 **Third Outbreak**

mid 2012 Begin of **Project Thunderbolt; **Subject Sixteen dies

late 2012 Desmond joins Thunderbolt (events of According to Nature begin)

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**Author's Note:** The two original characters became a necessity when I realised including Rooks and Koenig would require too many changes on the source material. Their gender was determined by coin-flip.

Because this is a Prototype/AC crossover and because there seem to be barely any other stories: THIS IS NOT SLASH!

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**Feedback welcome!**


	2. Tabiya

**Revision Note: **Altaïr's grasp of languages has been reworked from the ground up. 12th Century languages are notably different than those of modern times. The implementation of modern English though the Animus is an admittedly weak explanation, but I hope it's not too jarring since this fic is _not_ about how Altair learns to cope with the 21st Century.

Thanks to_ KrimzonGuard Bites BaronP_ for bringing the problem to my attention in the first place.

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**2. Tabiya**

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Desmond was slouched in a cushioned chair in an empty conference room. The lights were dimmed and the borders of the room were drowned in shadow. Harsh white light reflected in a cleanly defined spot on the black, polished table on Desmond's right. It was still pointing on the pile of paper there and make the silver pen blink in invitation.

The pile of paper was a confidentiality agreement and an employment contract. Together, they clocked in at around two-hundred pages and Desmond had merely skimmed them. It was ridiculous. Somehow, Abstergo felt they needed to do this in the proper way. Just another employee, right? As if they wouldn't shoot him the moment he as much as _thought_ too intensely about a refusal.

He had not signed yet, but was fairly sure he would eventually. They wanted him as Altaïr's handler. They suspected the revived Assassin would take better to Desmond than to any of the others, even the other Assassins. Desmond wasn't so sure, but had kept his silence on the matter.

Lucy had also provided him with a laptop so Desmond could acquaint himself with Blacklight. Lucy had assured him the files were complete, missing pieces were exactly that: missing. Zeus, as seemed the preferred way to refer to him, had been in and out of Gentek for long enough to mess with their data and to destroy anything that could be a threat to him. On the other hand, Desmond never doubted for a second the files he had been given were censored in some way.

For a while, Desmond had been skimming through the files, watching videos, listened to taped conversations. Desmond had been hiding in Nice at the time and barely paid any attention to the news. New York was far away and he had had his own problems to content with at the time. Now, however, he saw the numbers, the civilians death and the staggering number of dead soldiers. All of it, topped off by a nuke blowing up off the coast.

After that, the infection stopped its spread, for reasons none of the reports agreed on, though the consensus was that Zeus had been destroyed in the blast. A theory blown all to hell when the second outbreak occured, leaving very little doubt about Mercer's survival.

They had plenty of video of Zeus doing all kinds of acrobatics out in the streets of New York. And when he was not bouncing around like some overgrown, genocidal circus monkey, he was having fun with Lovecraftian body-modification.

The door to the conference room opened.

Without looking up, Desmond said, "Not a chance."

Lucy walked around the table and stopped by his side, watching him in silence. He wondered what she saw in his face, what she thought about it. She put a cup of steaming coffee in front of him."

"Not a chance?" she asked.

"What I mean is, Altaïr's really _really _fucking good at what he does. I know. But… this?" he picked up the cup and tipped it towards the laptop. "He can't do that. He can't match that."

"Have you seen the files on the super soldiers?"

"I saw a few of them being butchered creatively."

Lucy took a sip from her own cup of coffee before she answered. "They have superior strength and speed. They _can _take on Zeus," she paused. "Well, _briefly. _And they cannot be infected, because they technically already are. We already know that Altaïr has very unusual genetic makeup." She paused again and Desmond glanced at her. She said, "You do, too. You even seem to be almost a throwback to Altaïr's time. Genetically, the two of you show no more difference than brothers. That's not what we expect with so much time in between."

Desmond scrolled aimlessly through the files, ostensibly to search for super soldiers, but he wasn't really paying attention.

"Altaïr is already stronger and faster than a normal man would be. Combined with the augmentation of standard super soldiers…"

"You get a killing machine," Desmond finished and then shook his head. "But this… Zeus-thing, that's not a man, isn't he? It? He's the virus itself. Somehow, I don't think a hidden blade to a vital organ is going to do much good."

"There are ways to fight it," Lucy assured him. Or perhaps she was only assuring herself, he couldn't quite tell. "Those infected with Blacklight, they develop a shared consciousness. They are unable to function alone. Even separating small groups of them renders them far less vicious. Blackwatch thinks and our scientist agree, that once the commanding mind is removed, the Infected make easy targets."

"That wasn't the question, Lucy," Desmond said. "I wanted to know how do you kill a virus with a blade? I've seen your videos, you know. Physical damage barely slows him down. I just don't think an Assassin is what you need. Shouldn't you, I dunno, just find a cure?"

"There was one, but Zeus got to it first. Gentek hasn't been able to recreate it. All research was either lost or was tampered with to make it useless."

She took a breath and Desmond felt her tension even at the distance between them. He still startled when she put her hand on his arm. "We are fighting this in any way we can. Thunderbolt is one weapon. At the very least, Zeus won't be able to do much _other _damage while he handles Altaïr."

Desmond frowned. "Let me tell you one thing, he'll make a _rotten _sacrificial lamb. This Altaïr wakes up and the last he remembers is killing the man who meant more to him anything else ever did. A man who used him and who betrayed him. He'll fight and if you burn him, he'll fight you. You understand that, do you?"

Lucy shook her head and from one moment to the next, the strain was obvious on her face. Or perhaps it had been all along and Desmond had only been to preoccupied to notice. She looked to have missed several days of sleep, dark shadows under her eyes and a worried frown ingrained dark wrinkles between her eyebrows and on the corners of her mouth. There was something glassy in her eyes, going deeper than tiredness. She was exhausted and only keeping upright on the strength of her own willpower.

"I understand nothing is easy," she said. Delicately, she took her hand away from him. "I've seen Altaïr through your Animus sessions. I've seen Blackwatch's super soldiers and I've seen what Zeus is capable of. I cannot guarantee his survival. Nor can I guarantee yours. Or mine. Or any other human being in the world."

She slipped to her feet and for the first time, Desmond saw the Assassin in her, the deadly grace her training had given her, the way she seemed to be made from steel wire. "A slim chance is better than none, don't you think?"

As she walked away, Desmond put both his elbows up on the table and buried his face in his hands.

"Desmond?" Lucy said across the room. He lifted his head just far enough to see past his fingers.

She said, "It'll be three hours until we can wake Altaïr. Perhaps you should try to catch some sleep? There is a couch in the office through that door." She pointed.

"Yeah, maybe," he muttered. "You should, too, you know."

But she only shook her head and left him alone.

While leaning forward again, he hit the keyboard and some new video kicked in. It had no sound and it took a long time until Desmond realised the flickering came not from the inside of his eyelids.

He watched the monochrome image as it danced through its gruesome motions. Too many things still made no sense. He understood the desperation well enough, but there were too many pieces missing to make a good picture. Zeus' motivations seemed all over the place. He caused the first outbreak, but more than once, he seemed to be fighting it. Blackwatch believed he was badly hurt by the nuke and that's what gave the respite between the first and second outbreaks. There was very little in the files that'd even _begin _to explain what caused the pause after the second outbreak. Blackwatch reports were rather full of themselves, but even so, it was obvious they just mopped up behind somebody else.

None of them trustworthy. He couldn't trust Gentek to share any truly valuable research, he couldn't trust Blackwatch to hand over the powerful weapons and he couldn't trust Abstergo because they had kidnapped him to perform weird experiments. Lucy was an Assassin, but she had made it clear where she stood. How would he know what she was willing to permit herself if she thought it was necessary?

He reached for the coffee, but found the cup cool under his touch. Must have drifted off, right? He probably should have gone to the couch after all, instead of being broody out here. He drank from the cold coffee and grimaced as the bitter liquid went down. The video he had opened before was still running, ground surveillance from a helicopter, Desmond guessed, showing a war-torn city street below. It was empty, nothing was alive under that camera's eye, just debris from broken houses, their innards of furniture spilled out into the open.

He watched it a little longer, an endless pathway of carnage, permutations of the same thing until wasn't sure the video wasn't only on a loop.

Drinking the cold coffee in some weird act of defiance, Desmond dived back in. Reviewing more of the video material, it slowly dawned on him why Abstergo would even _think _of bringing Altaïr into this fight. The way Mercer moved about, it had something of the Assassin to it. Or rather, the way the Assassin _would_ have moved, had his human body not constrained him. And the super soldier programme seemed to have been designed to remove exactly those constraints.

The problem remained, though. Desmond could see Altaïr matching Mercer for agility and speed, but there was no hope in hell to match him for sheer, brutal strength. About the wanton violence, Desmond wasn't entirely sure.

When he concentrated, he could still feel himself in Altaïr's skin and his thoughts and with it, always, there came the sense of easy confidence in himself and his ability. Al Mualim had shaken that certainty, but it hadn't broken. Altaïr, in all the years of his life and through even his failures, had always understood himself as more dangerous than his enemies. He judged his risks carefully, but he did not _fear. _He had never encountered a foe he could not take.

But could he take this? A man who was not a man at all, whose very nature set him so far apart from anything anyone had ever faced before. Not just a pandemic, but an _intelligent _one. A sentient virus, gorged on some of the brightest minds of the century and given powers that the gods of all the old pantheons would envy.

One Assassin, no matter how brilliant and no matter how enhanced they could make his body, could stand against that. Which begged the question of why they were doing it in the first place. Desmond suspected there had been plans to clone Altaïr for some time, though he didn't really know what use Abstergo thought to get out of him. What lies had they planned to tell him, just to make him comply?

And were these the same lies that Desmond was currently considering to believe? He glanced back at the contract papers, wondering if he was supposed to sign in blood.

"Desmond?" Lucy called from the door. "We are starting the wakeup process."

He gave the papers a lost, baleful look and hurried out into the large room.

"Altaïr was fairly prolificent in the languages of his time," Lucy explained as she fell in step beside him. "Which has made it possible to add your understanding of English to his own. However, it might take some time for him to be able to access that additional knowledge."

Desmond was barely listening to her. The room had the look of a modern temple, now that he had had time to think about it. A house of worship of concrete and glass and Altaïr's cage at the centre, on its dais, the altar and the relic both.

Desmond couldn't spot Rikkin anywhere, but the others were still there, busy working behind their respective screens. Salinger hoovered somewhere behind them, keeping an eye on everything. She was the only one who spared Desmond a look when he walked in, a quick assessment of his threat value before he was dismissed from her attention.

"Explain again how it works," Desmond said without looking at Lucy. "I mean, I've only been in a handful of memories, can he even function like that?"

"The Animus records everything," Lucy said. "But it needs an active mind to anchor the memories. That's why we needed you, the amount of data the Animus generates is enormous. We could never sift through all of it, but we can transfer it. He will remember everything the Altaïr from your memories knew."

"And something more, wasn't it?" And though Desmond phrased it like a question, it was hardly that, not when the answer was right there. He wondered what else they had changed while they were at it, but he knew already asking would be pointless.

The glass box had been retracted into the ground and medical staff was busy around Altaïr's still motionless body. They had put him in a hospital gown and Desmond almost laughed at the line of reasoning that must have gone into it. Being completely naked would not give Altaïr a sense of vulnerability, the lack of a weapon would. Or, possibly, the lag of a _target. _Altaïr's state of mind, from what Desmond remembered from the last moments in the Animus, was more confused than anything. And he had been tired, physically and emotionally. The man in his memories needed a break. A long night's sleep or several, a good meal and the company of friends.

What he would _get, _however, was a worse war and a much bloodier fate.

The people withdrew from Altaïr and the cage's walls began to rise again.

"Are these bonds?" Desmond asked, his voice too loud in the methodical silence the others worked in. The clicking of keyboards and mouses came to a sudden halt.

Straps held Altaïr's arms and legs in place.

"Indeed they are, Mr. Miles," Vidic announced. "Your ancestor isn't known for his docile nature and we just gave him, what you would call 'superpowers'."

Desmond gave Vidic a hard frown but it was difficult to stare him down when the ceiling light reflected on the reading glasses perched on the tip of his nose.

"Right, let's picture it, shall we?" Desmond said scathingly. "A moment ago, you are standing in your garden. Admittedly, there is some suspicious blood on your hands and you are looking at a very shiny artefact worth enough to start a crusade over, but it's still _home_. The very _next _moment you are here. In a box, in a very _strange_ place and _strapped to a table_. A lot of _very_ _strange_ people are telling you, they are your friend and please can you go kill some monstrous abomination for us before it turns us all into zombies?"

Someone sniggered further back, but Desmond couldn't quite make out who it was, he guessed Rebecca. Vidic seemed less impressed and Desmond had a feeling that the scientists and Salinger in her military posturing would be siding with Vidic.

Desmond pulled his brows together a bit more. "The 'we are your friends' line is a much easier sell if he's not tied to a table. You still got the cage, don't you? What's he going to do?"

"Technically, the reinforced glass of the containment cell couldn't withstand his enhanced strength for very long," said Wyland.

"Yeah, but he doesn't _know_ that. He isn't some animal with rabies."

Salinger looked like she was about to snort, but her stiffness prevented her from doing so. Desmond saw her shrug minimally.

"I agree with Desmond," Lucy said. "We'll fare better if we make a good first impression." She gave Vidic a quick look, one that said _you should actually know that, _Vidic was, apart from Lucy and Desmond, the one most familiar with Altaïr's history and personality.

"From a historical point of view," Shaun chimed in. "Only if it is of any interest to you, we are dealing with a cultured man, as far as the limits of his time and place allowed."

"Sure, put it to a _vote_," Salinger remarked. "We have all the time in the world."

Desmond shrugged, more nonchalantly than he felt. "Just don't tell me later I didn't warn you."

"Have it your way, Mr. Miles," Vidic finally said. He pushed some button and the bonds on Altaïr's limbs unlocked and retreated back into the case of the Animus. "Unless you have any further objection, time is wasting and I suggest we proceed."

Desmond gave no answer, but the sounds of activity returned, medical machinery beeped on, people called instructions or readouts back and forth. Desmond paid it no heed. He circled the cage slowly, watching the man inside, trying to anticipate what he would do the moment consciousness forced his eyes to open. Desmond understood Altaïr on a level he couldn't quite explain, but even he had no idea what would happen. You blink, once, and you wake up a thousand years later. No one had a plan for that.

Desmond stepped close to the cage, so close that, if he breathed too hard, he would mist the glass. The way he stood, he was likely to be one of the first things Altaïr would see, though whether there would be recognition or not was beyond Desmond. Altaïr's senses were sharp, the Animus had tried to convey the feeling in garish colour, but it was nothing like how it _felt. _It was looking at the world and making sense of it, reading a person's stance and expression in less than an instant, able to tell friend from ally from enemy.

It was harder to see his breathing through the hospital gown, but Desmond guessed it would speed up, from artificial sleep to wakefulness with very little in between. Altaïr had honed his senses in battle, he wouldn't be used to languishing, to luxuriate in any cozy half-sleep where you could still deny the world.

A tiny shiver went through the body and Wyland called an affirmative, rattling off rate of breathing and heartbeat and brain activity. She sounded level, so Desmond supposed there was nothing to worry about.

It happened faster than even Desmond had expected. Altaïr opened his eyes, flexed his hands, once. He sat up and and slipped to his feet without any hint of effort, no sign of vertigo or disorientation caused by the speed of it.

Then he stopped. Just stood without moving, as his gaze pierced the glass.

It was strange, seeing him like this, Desmond thought, his real face not just the mirror-image of internal perception. Altaïr's face was not as hawkish as he thought, not as sharp or angular. He looked younger than he had ever felt.

Altaïr took in his surroundings with a minimal turn of his head, his attention resting for a long moment on the group of scientists and their various returning stares, before his gaze — finally, thankfully — settled on Desmond and a faint frown darkened his expression.

Desmond cleared his throat awkwardly. He had never learned to speak arabic and the Animus hadn't been much help, but _Altaïr _did, it was his mother tongue and Desmond could summon and draw on that knowledge if he tried hard enough.

_"This must be pretty confusing for you," _Desmond said. _"There is no danger here."_

Of course, Desmond didn't really know that. There were enough holes in the files they had given him to drive a tank battalion through. He just hoped Altaïr would be too distracted to spot Desmond's own doubts.

The frown deepened, carved merciless lines between his brows as he considered Desmond's words. Without taking his gaze off Desmond, Altaïr reached out with his right hand and put his fingertips to the glass of his cage. He pushed slightly, just feeling the resistance in an obvious desire to assure himself of the reality of his surroundings.

_"I'm Desmond," _he tried. _"I can explain things to you, but it's going to be complicated." _

The foreign language scratched at his throat, uncomfortable in its lack of familiarity. He didn't quite understand himself what he was saying and his own ears kept telling him he was talking nothing but gibberish.

Altaïr flexed his left hand again, subconsciously looking for the missing weight of the blade gauntlet on his wrist. _"Yes," _he said finally, gravelly. His tone was so perfectly neutral, Desmond suspected he was the only one who heard the hidden threat in it. _"Do."_

"What are…?" Vidic began behind him and Desmond waved at him hastily to silence him, but by then, Altaïr's head had already snapped around and he didn't seem very pleased with what he was seeing.

_"Altaïr," _Desmond said. _"Please, we mean no harm. We need your help."_

_"You wanted to explain," _Altaïr said, though without looking at Desmond again.

Damn, Desmond decided and for a minute it was practically all his mind supplied. Maybe he should have prepared some kind of speech or at least thought a _little _about how he was going to get his problems across.

Waiting for an answer rather than prompt again, Altaïr began to pace the length and breadth of the cage, tracing it's outline with his fingers, slow, predatory steps in the confined space. There was just enough room for him to circle the Animus at the centre. Desmond saw the Assassin's gaze wander around the room, travel up its height and follow the anorganic, uncompromising angles.

_"We are Assassins," _Desmond began. _"And we are from your future." _

Altaïr glanced up briefly. _"No, only the black-haired woman and the man wearing lenses," _Altaïr corrected. _"The blonde woman doesn't know and you don't want to be." _

_"Uh, yes, right," _Desmond agreed. _"But we are working together right now. There is a war going on outside. It's much worse than anything you can imagine. Worse than anything _I _can imagine and history hasn't been very peaceful. We need your help against an enemy of all mankind."_

Altaïr had completed his circuit and stopped right in front of Desmond. _"How did I get here?" _

Desmond could have reached for the easy lie, blamed it on the Apple into which Altaïr must remember staring just before he woke up here, but did he really want to start off with a lie? And risk the damage it would do if it was revealed?

_"You are…" _Desmond said and stopped. Cloning wasn't a concept he could easily explain and Altaïr probably wasn't going to take well to be called a mere copy of himself. Not every omission was a lie, right? _"We have technologies that would look like magic to you. Actually, I don't really understand it too well myself so I can't really explain it in a way you would understand."_

Altaïr studied his face. _"Your explanations aren't very good," _he decided and tilted his head at Desmond who thought he spotted something close to amusement in the twitch of his mouth.

Altaïr said, _"Let me out of here and then try again."_

* * *

James Heller shouldered his way through the crowd on the way home. He smelled the tension in the people, saw it in the way they moved, heard it in the pitch of their voices. No matter what the outbreak did, whether — or when — it ever came to Montreal, the panic had already preceded it. The government was doing its best to placate, but it didn't take a genius to know that mere closed borders would do shit against a horde of Infected. Things were going to hell and fast.

It had been a lucky shot that Heller had moved with Dana and Maya just before the third outbreak. He'd wanted to stay, it was the place of all his good memories. It turned out, however, it was also the place of a shitload of _bad _memories, for him and for Maya, too. A new city, even a new country should do them both good. They could have a fresh start, even with the baggage.

And then, the it's like fucking groundhog day over again. The same pictures from New York City again. It'd looked so alike, Heller had originally thought it _was. _Some stupid documentary, or even an attempt to market an upcoming film about the whole disaster. It'd be in bad taste, but that'd be nothing new.

It turned out, it was so much worse. And this time, nothing and no one seemed capable of putting a stop to it.

He got annoyed with the crowd and he turned away from them, intending to cut through several alleys on the way home. There'd be fewer people to see and even fewer of _those _who still cared about some guy running 60 mph. They'd probably just put it down to the particular batch of drugs they'd been shooting up.

He'd been doing this for long enough now, but it still surprised him just how much strain it took to walk like a normal man among men. It hadn't bothered him before, but these days, all he could do was see himself through his daughter's eyes and he let that be his guideline. What'd she think if she saw him? Not running exactly, but the other things he was capable off. Sometimes, he saw it in her eyes that she _knew. _Perhaps she was still too young to comprehend everything, but that'd change and she would ask. He wanted to make damn sure he had a good answer for her when the time came.

Feeling under surveillance, he slowed down to a fast walk and eyed the surrounding rooftops past the edges of his bag.

He couldn't hold down a steady job, eventually people figured out something was off with him. He didn't eat with the others, he couldn't even pretend very well. He didn't seem to be in the habit of blinking and breathing in the same way normal people did. Never mind that he was usually _edgy _around them because he could never forget their difference in raw strength and murderous history.

It was Dana Mercer's income that supported Maya and him. She had several small jobs going, running a blog and working at a video rental store. She sometimes got work as a proper journalist, but she — like Heller himself — was driven to keep a low profile in case either of them appeared on some Blackwatch radar.

Where they'd go from here, what they'd do if the infection spread this far, Heller had no idea. Life was day to day and it had few certainties. In many ways, he thought, his family was off better than those of the people all around him. There was no reason for him to fear the infection and if it got too hot, he could path a way for Maya and Dana and take them someplace safe. It was an assurance everyone else lacked. It was damn time something good came out of this.

Someone turned into the alley a little behind him and matched their speed to his. Heller caught himself _hoping _for some dumb thug to try to rob him. It'd serve to scratch an itch he didn't like to acknowledge. But this wasn't the kind of neighbourhood, it was poor, but not criminal. Muggings in the bright of day happened rarely here.

He kept walking as if nothing was wrong, but his fingertips itched and the back of his neck crawled, skin shivering as he fought the instinct to change his appearance. He had trained with Dana, reining in his tendency to sprout spikes and claws at the smallest sign of trouble, unexpected touches or even just from people getting too close. You spent time with your head stuck in the ass-end of a war-zone, your reflexes were going to be that way.

So, despite the bristling, he showed nothing out of the ordinary, a man carrying a bag of groceries who had chosen to take a shortcut home so he could be with his daughter. It was the normal thing to do. It was the _sensible _thing, not giving in to paranoia.

Yet, something smelled wrong and it got worse the close he came to where the alley opened up to a wider street. He heard a scratch on concrete behind him, the sound of someone launching themselves forward from a leisurely walk to a sprint. Heller shifted biomass to his back, hardened it without thinking about it, formed jagged spikes to keep anyone at a distance.

He was not fast enough, too caught up in his own attempt to suppress his nature. But the attack he expected never came, there was only a short, sharp prick at the base of his skull, hard enough to make his head jerk forward, but it was gone as soon as it had started.

The groceries forgotten, Heller twisted around as his hands shaped into vicious claws and snapping them up to slice up anyone stupid enough to be in his hands trajectory. Something hard hit the side of his head and in the next moment a whipfist wrapped around his neck, lifted him up and tossed him into the wall. It wasn't enough to throw him through the bricks, but he left a dent and dust formed an obscuring cloud around him.

Heller lashed out. Or _tried _to, at any rate. His muscles were slow to react. Weak, as if he could barely bear the weight of the talons his fingers had become. It took forever to struggle back to his feet. His vision blurred as he did so.

The whipfist was back around his neck and head, lifting him and pushing him into the wall again. The jagged edges of the bricks at his back _hurt. _He clawed ineffectively at the whipfist.

"Remember this moment, Sgt. Heller?"

He'd known, _of course _he had _fucking _known the moment he'd heard about a new outbreak.

"Motherfucker!" Heller grunted as Mercer's smirking face became visible through the dust and his shaky vision. "Came back for seconds?"

"I'm here to talk. After all, we _are _almost family," Mercer said. He lifted his other hand, untransformed, holding up a large, steel syringe. "This is just to make sure I don't have to hurt you while I do it."

"What's this shit?" Heller still couldn't get his body to obey. His legs kicked out uselessly and the harder he tried, the less grip he could get on the tentacle holding him.

"Whitelight, the real thing. At this dosage it prevents the virus from exhibiting its more extreme properties. A higher dosage will kill it. And it's host, of course."

"You destroyed Whitelight."

"I made sure it couldn't hurt me," Mercer corrected. "It's not hurting me now, is it."

Heller growled. His very helplessness made the rage boil hot at the back of his head, willing his body to comply, to fight and to kill. If Mercer had found him, had _stalked _him, he knew where Maya was and if he killed him now, there was no one left to stop him. He had wanted Maya, hadn't he? What was the bastard doing, anyway? Why not kill him, if he had the means? Why play with him? Just to watch him suffer? Suited the motherfucker just fine, probably. He'd get off on it.

"Are you listening to what I'm saying?"

"No," Heller snarled. "I don't need no more of your bullshit."

If he was late, Dana would have enough sense to figure out something had gone catastrophically wrong. She wouldn't wait and hope, she would take Maya and run. Maybe that'd have to be enough and Mercer's pointless ramblings here bought them enough time to get a head-start.

Mercer watched him and the glittering amusement in his face drained away slowly, replaced by something cold and angry. Ah, here it comes, Heller thought, that rage, that need to kill and avenge himself. Blacklight needed to dominate. He couldn't have forgotten how their last meeting went. Even if he somehow survived, it would still have hurt like a bitch.

"I want a truce," Mercer said, clearly he had been about to go on and _fucking on _about some tangent before he got to this point. Should have let him, Heller thought, waste more time.

"Even your jokes suck." Which was, admittedly, not a very good comeback. If only he could _move, _even a little, he'd have a _much _better comeback in store.

"I never got a chance to thank you," Mercer continued as if Heller hadn't spoken. "I lost sight of my goal in New York. Dying changes your perspective."

"Yeah, shit. I wish to hell I could have made it stick."

"You want to kill me? You are free to figure out what you did wrong. In the meantime: I. Want. A. Truce."

"You keep using that word…"

Abruptly, the whipfist unfurled from him and Heller dropped like a stone, reflexes all shot to hell, his limbs useless.

Mercer strode a few steps away, retracting the biomass of his arm and changing it back into a hand. "You still don't get it. You are not the apex predator. I am not. So. You keep your life and my sister and your daughter and stay out of my way. No infected will touch you. You don't come after me, I don't submerge you in Whitelight."

Heller said nothing, reduced to glowering at Mercer from the ground in impotent anger. It sounded like a good offer, but only if Mercer could stick to his word for more than five minutes at a time. Besides, could he sit back and watch the world burn while Mercer went about some new, mysterious 'goal'? Look at what that'd been last time. What will Maya say in ten years, looking back at history?

But dying? That syringe looked full, Mercer hadn't given him the full dose, but seemed prepared to be done with him if he didn't like his answer. Two could play at this game, right? Mercer was too full of himself, like this was some nice, generous offer and Heller should be grateful to accept it. He'd be blind, just as he had been blind about all the important parts before.

"Maya…" Heller began.

"She's interesting," Mercer said with a shrug. "But yours. Off limits to me and mine."

"How stupid do you think I am? You are a lying asshole."

Mercer crouched down in front of him, leant forward to bring them face to face. He bared his teeth in a grin. "Very stupid," he answered. "You are dead, right now. I don't need to lie. I respect you. My sister likes you. You get one out-of-jail-free card. Goddamn use it."

_Respect, _my ass. Like he knew what the hell that was. His flesh prickled, revolting, fighting Whitelight and Heller thought he already felt a little of his strength come back. For a second he considered waiting it out, kill Mercer while he still listened to the sound of his own voice. But he couldn't risk that, pushing Mercer too far could get him killed and no doubt any 'truce' would be off then.

Heller clenched his teeth and glared at Mercer, all the anger and all the old hatred burning through his gaze. It wasn't difficult to find those emotions, even after all that'd happened. Heller knew he was a monster, but he fell short several magnitudes in comparison to what was before him.

"All right," he forced out. "But I catch sight of you _anywhere _near any of them, I _will _find you, and that'd be the last fucking time. You get me?"

Mercer straightened, grin broadening. "Quite," he said, unimpressed. He turned to go, folding his hands away in the pockets of his jacket as he strode off. Not ran, not bounded off the walls, just _walk_ in some utterly unconcerned swagger like he wasn't every shitty biblical plague ever.

"Give my regards to Dana," Mercer said over his shoulder. "And give Amaya a kiss from me."

* * *

_End of Chapter 2_

* * *

**Reference:**

_"Tabiya"_— from Arabic 'normal manner', a chess opening that is well-known

* * *

**Author's Note:** Alex was supposed to explain the means of his survival, but I realised how supremely stupid it would be to do so to Heller. As you can see, I'm not a big fan of the consume-Heller-from-the-inside theory as it would mean losing Heller as a character.

**Additionally, **I like to explore my own boundaries. If I find a favourite character does something that disturbs me, I don't try to sugar-coat or ignore the problem. Alex's questionable interest in Amaya Heller is one such concept.

* * *

**Feedback welcome!**


	3. The Only Sane Answer

******Revision Note: **Thanks to _KrimzonGuard Bites BaronP_ for bringing my large blunder in regards to modern vs. medieval languages to my attention. The story has been fixed to reflect the discrepancies.

* * *

**3. The Only Sane Answer**

* * *

Altaïr: Perched in fabricated casualness in a chair in the conference room, half-closed eyes scanning everything past dark lashes, mouth set in a tight line and not even a flicker of a muscle in his face. He kept flexing his left hand where it rested loosely on the table in front of him, almost like a nervous tick.

Altaïr: In jeans and t-shirt and sneakers, all bearing the Abstergo logo.

He was surreal.

Desmond couldn't even begin to imagine how the reverse felt, though Altaïr had shown few signs of agitation. If the clothes they had given him puzzled him, he had not commented on it. If he felt frightened or merely confused, he showed little of it, only his body was pulled tense in his seat, ready to snap or spring into action.

The discussion had gone back and forth for some time until Desmond had — much to his own surprise — prevailed and got them to let Altaïr out. A show of good faith, Desmond had called it. Some hospitality before they fed him to the monster.

An assistant had brought food and coffee from the cafeteria, but it was sitting untouched on its tray.

With some effort, Desmond peeled his attention away from Altaïr to study the others, gauging them as much as the Assassin, just so maybe he'd have a moment's advance warning before things went irrevocably south.

Salinger was the most tense, though quite obviously not the laid-back type to start with. She was watchful and alert, almost aggressively so and though Desmond spotted no weapon on her, she might as well have been bristling with such. In a way, it made sense. She was Blackwatch, if anyone had first-hand experience of their shared enemy — or at least the next best thing — it would be her. Desmond didn't know the extent of Altaïr's augmentation, but he guessed she wouldn't have been notably more alarmed if Mercer himself had sat at their table.

Vidic seemed annoyed more than afraid, probably because Desmond had overruled him the second time in a short while. It must be grating to be ordered around by a former hostage and lab-rat, but Desmond couldn't manage to summon much sympathy. If they wanted him to handle Altaïr, they would have to let him do it, right? That's how it worked or it wouldn't work at all.

_"Altaïr," _Desmond said in Arabic. _"If you have any questions…"_

Altaïr turned his head to look at him, face still carefully blank. _"Your stories make no sense."_

Desmond sighed inwardly, but managed not to let it show. _"What would make sense?" _he asked, trying a different approach.

_"What is the Apple?" _

Desmond hadn't expected that question, but he supposed it made sense. It was one of the last memories Altaïr had of before. The Piece of Eden and the glimpse of both its horror and its wonders. How could he just let go of that?

Desmond glanced at Lucy, currently taking in hushed voices with Shaun and Rebecca. Desmond remembered what Altaïr had said about her — _she doesn't know — _and pushed the thought away again as soon as it had come. Perhaps it meant nothing at all.

_"Powerful," _Desmond said. _"I understand as much as you do. I mean, I get some of the technology better, we have some like that, but it's still… like sorcery to me, too." _

Suddenly, sharply, Altaïr snapped his hand up and put it to Desmond's arm, squeezing hard and Desmond had to suppress a wince at the pain, never mind the shock of it. Salinger was half on her feet and Vidic's fingers edged close to some panic button inlaid on the table.

_"You are not like the other illusions," _Altaïr observed. He squeezed harder, testing the theory and then let go.

Desmond would have a bruise to remember this by, no doubt, and consider himself lucky Altaïr hadn't accidentally ripped his arm off. But at least something dawned on him: Altaïr's preternatural calm in a situation like this. He thought he was stuck in an illusion created by the Apple. He was biding his time, waiting for an attack or an opportunity, or even only a crack in the nightmare fantasy he could use to pry himself free.

_"We aren't illusions," _Desmond said. _"We… _okay_, not a good argument. But I don't know how I could prove it to you?"_

Desmond scanned the others on the table, one after the other. Wyland and Vidic were talking in hushed tones while Salinger stared across the table at Altaïr without blinking and just this side of challenging. Lucy and Rebecca were also talking, their gestures getting expressive in the beginning of some argument, Shaun trying to get between them before they started.

"We have a problem," Desmond said aloud. It took a moment for the other to realise he had spoken. Desmond cleared his throat. "Altaïr thinks we are an illusion created by the Apple."

"I thought he was taking this all a little too well," Shaun commented.

"Mr. Miles, I'm sure you can find the right words," Vidic said. "After all, you seemed quite certain of what to do before."

Couldn't help yourself, could you? Desmond thought sorely. Desmond shook his head in frustration," Yeah, but how do you prove to someone you are _not _an illusion?"

"This looks much more complicated than what Al Mualim did," Lucy offered. "Didn't it feel different inside the illusion?"

Desmond thought about it. "Hard to say. Through the Animus, yes, but everything was a little weird sometimes, I can't tell. Not for sure. And Altaïr's going to prefer to err on the side of caution."

'"I'm not sure what the topic is right now," Salinger cut in.

Vidic looked at her sharply. "It concerns the specifics of the, uhm, previous project. You need not worry about it. It is merely a temporary delay, we will have it sorted momentarily."

_"Tell me about the Apple," _Altaïr demanded. Desmond looked at him, waiting, until Altaïr turned his head and added, _"Translate."_

_"You know, it'd be easier if you just spoke English," _Desmond pointed out. _"Since you understand them you could…" _

He saw the surprise in Altaïr's gaze, flickering up and dying in an instant. _"No, translate."_

Desmond frowned, but decided he didn't need this argument on top of everything else. He had no idea where the limits of Altaïr's understanding actually. Lucy had said it make take a while. Perhaps he only pretended to understand them? Or, and glancing at him briefly supported it, Altaïr just wanted to keep the added benefit of a language barrier, giving him more time to think and make up his mind, the privacy of his thoughts undisturbed.

"He wants to know about the Apple," Desmond said.

The blood visibly drained from Vidic's face, giving Desmond a furious look and then staring at Wyland and Salinger as if daring them to inquire further.

"That information is classified," he said.

"Didn't we have a full disclosure agreement?" Salinger asked.

"Concerning Thunderbolt, absolutely," Vidic corrected. "It has nothing to do…"

"Apparently it does," she insisted. "Doctor, we are not going to be kept in the dark on something that is potentially vital on these matters. Let me tell you, Thunderbolt does not rank too highly in our assessment. It seems a long shot and unless you can give us something substantial, _Thunderstorm _is off."

"What's Thunderstorm?" Desmond asked.

On the other end of the table, Lucy said something to Rebecca, who did something on her laptop, then nodded and handed the computer to Lucy. She picked it up and stepped around the table, approaching Altaïr.

"Thunderstorm is in its early stages," Vidic said. "Whether or how it progresses depends entirely on how tractable you can make your ancestor."

"You were about to explain about this 'apple'," Salinger reminded him.

"I am not at liberty," Vidic tried again.

Altaïr shifted slightly as Lucy put the laptop in front of him. She pulled a chair close, watching him attentively.

"I know you understand me," she said quietly and waited for some kind of affirmation that never came. Merely the quiet intensity of his attention gave him away.

Lucy said, "I realise we are asking much. You've been through a lot just before we brought you here. We will not lie to you. The Apple is a powerful device. It stores knowledge, like a book, but much more advanced. We have nothing like that in our world. It came from a precursor race with nearly godlike powers." She pointed at the laptop. "This is a stone-axe in comparison, but the same principle."

She studied his face and he gave a slow nod. She brought up a picture of the Apple on the screen. "We call them Pieces of Eden. We know of at least 48 such pieces, but we haven't found all of them. Some are like the Apple. The one Al Mualim had at Masyaf was recovered a few years ago."

Altaïr startled and glanced away from the screen at her. "It is here?" he asked, so low the others wouldn't hear it, even if they weren't currently otherwise occupied, with Salinger demanding an explanation and Vidic insisting she didn't need one.

"No, it was destroyed," Lucy said. She opened another file, security camera footage from, what Desmond guessed, was Denver Airport.

He had seen plenty of gruesome things recently, watching the viral outbreaks unfold and the perversion of humanity they brought. Denver was different. It was just an airport, some open space in the hall, people crossed it with their luggage in hand or with their children; they were pushing carts, waiting in line, greeting or seeing off friends and family

The camera began to shake, very slight at first, then stronger. It looked like an earthquake, shaking people from their feet and making small pieces to debris rain from the ceiling. Somewhere behind the camera, a crack began its run, splitting open the tiles of the ground like a wound. Golden light upward, so sharp and cold it hurt just to look. The image flickered, once, and went black.

"What happened?" Desmond asked. "What did you do?"

Lucy hesitated. "I don't really know. It was kept under wraps even before. And when it blew… but I can guess. Abstergo was working on a satellite network to broadcast the Apple worldwide. I suppose the Apple was never meant to function in this way, trying to implement it must have caused a short circuit, maybe a defence mechanism. If Abstergo has any other data, I have no access to it."

"There are others," Altaïr said.

"Yes, but they are not all for brainwashing. We have no other Apple at the moment."

"Unless they aren't telling you," Desmond pointed out.

She gave him a long look, nodded slowly. "Yes, there is that. My cover is blown wide open, of course, so I wouldn't be surprised. But I said it before, we have other problems right now."

"What's Thunderstorm?"

Desmond could tell she knew the answer and didn't want to give it. She send a long look down the table, at Vidic and Salinger and how attentive Wyland was listening to them.

"Thunderbolt is a test-run," she said eventually. She avoided both Desmond's and Altaïr's eye as she continued, staring at some point on the table in front of her. "To see how well Altaïr adapts, how well the augmentation takes and how he fares against Zeus. You said it yourself, Desmond, he's just one man, he won't stand a chance. But… we have the means to… create… more than one man."

It took a moment to sink in.

"You are breeding an army?" Desmond said. "Of clones? Like Star Wars?"

A smile flashed across Lucy's face, but she was serious again when she answered. "Yes," she said, making no attempt to apologise. She caught Desmond's gaze and held it. "You have no idea what it's like out there. What we are up against. Blacklight has infected or killed more than 80% of the East Coast population. That's over 90 _million_ people just in that region, Desmond. And we could do _nothing."_

It was hard to think clearly in the face of such staggering odds, Desmond thought. Never mind that a part of him found the idea of an army of Altaïrs comical. He knew it wasn't going to work, but didn't quite know how to put it into words for Lucy.

"Couldn't you just, I dunno, copy his immunity for everyone? That'd nick the whole thing, wouldn't it?"

"The augmentation is achieved through infection with a weaker strain of Blacklight, but only certain people have the right DNA for it to take at all. For everyone else, it's just like a normal infection. The relevant genetic sequence is very rare, found only in a few individuals. Mercer must have had it, too, but all his DNA samples from when he was alive have been destroyed when he infiltrated Gentek. It's not an avenue for a cure. I'm sorry."

She looked at Altaïr and reiterated, "I'mso sorry."

Salinger got to her feet so abruptly, the chair scraped on the floor roughly. "I'll have to talk to my superior," she said, looking down on Vidic. "I can't just let this go."

Vidic waved her off. "Yes yes, do what you think is necessary. Mr. Rikkin will set you straight shortly."

Salinger's expression made it clear that she rather doubted it. Without another word, she left the conference room.

Vidic cleared his throat and looked at Wyland. "Something the matter?"

She gave him a small smile. "I'm just wondering," she said.

"Can we get on with it?" He glared across the table. "Have you sorted _him _out by now?"

Lucy snapped the laptop closed and pulled it to her. "I can't say," she replied.

_"I want to see it," _Altaïr said. _"Not inside some machine. I want to go there." _

His gaze travelled the length of the room effortlessly and made Vidic stiffen in his seat as if he was a rabbit under an eagle's shadow.

Desmond said, "He wants to see it. He won't trust a video. Can't blame him, really. I'm not completely sure I trust you, either."

Vidic made a displeased grimace, but Altaïr didn't take his gaze away and the good doctor grew increasingly nervous under its pressure.

"That was the plan," Wyland said. "But I suggest we don't skip the scheduled training sessions. His body is not as he remembers it."

"Sounds reasonable," Desmond agreed. "But we'll still be talking about this Thunderstorm thing."

Vidic glowered in Lucy's direction. "You just had to, Ms. Stillman?"

"Well, I seem to be the only one who paid any attention during Desmond's Animus sessions," Lucy said with the same bite. "I believe good information leads to good results. And we can't afford to have bad results, can we?"

"My faith in your judgement isn't as strong as it used to be," Vidic remarked.

Lucy's face hardened, letting the moment hang between them. Slowly, she said, "We were enemies, Warren. You can't blame me for doing what was necessary. And that's exactly what I'm doing right now, too."

She got to her feet, commanding the room despite her small frame. "If it's all right with you, I'd like to give you all a rundown of the schedule. Time's wasting, wasn't it, Warren?"

Vidic gave her a resigned wave and refrained from pushing the issue.

Lucy continued, "We are planning a training session of one week for Altaïr. He will also need to acquaint himself with modern weapons. We could expand this to two more weeks, if the situation demands it. After that, we will be flown out to a Blackwatch base at the edge of the Red Zone. We'll hopefully know more, then."

"When do we start?" Desmond asked.

Lucy exchanged a quick glance with Wyland and than studied Altaïr's face for a moment. "To be honest, we expected it would take longer for Altaïr to even be on his feet and lucid. It gives us a little spare time that we wouldn't normally have." She smiled a little. "We can all catch up on some much needed rest."

"Altaïr just woke up," Desmond pointed out.

"You can entertain him by explaining the wonders of a modern toilet," Vidic offered acidly.

"There are rooms prepared for both of you," Lucy offered. "Medical staff is at hand should something happen."

Desmond arched his brows at her. "Should something happen?"

It was Wyland who answered, "Nothing should happen, but I'd rather be prepared. We haven't got too much experience with human clones."

"I'm so looking forward to explain that concept in 12th century Arabic," Desmond muttered, more to himself.

Lucy walked a few steps and picked up something from the table, than she returned to Desmond's side and put it on top of the contract papers, pushing all in his direction. "This is your security pass. As part of Thunderbolt, you get a high clearance, but security will still stop you from going somewhere you shouldn't."

"What happened to the pen things?" Desmond asked, picking up the card and inspecting it without much enthusiasm.

"Too easily misplaced," Vidic said without any inflection whatsoever.

Desmond chuckled to himself. Finally, he took a deep breath and put on an earnest mien. "All right, you win. Let's call it a day, good for you."

"Good for everyone," Wyland added, not without warmth. She was the first to get to her feet. "We'll continue tomorrow."

* * *

In the end, Desmond signed the contract and the confidentiality agreement, having read neither. He still doubted they would mean anything, if Abstergo or whatever other sinister multinational decided otherwise. After that, Lucy showed him his new room, which for all Desmond could tell, was almost like the old room. Same industrial design of hard lines, glass and steel, coloured in grey and white.

Desmond saw no sign of gruesome paintings, so at least that was a relief.

He could call Lucy over the in-house network, or Vidic or Wyland if he so wished. Desmond rather doubted the latter two were particularly likely. And what would he be talking to with Lucy, either? How Altaïr had identified her loyalties as questionable with one look?

Desmond pushed the thought aside.

Altaïr had been quartered in a similar room just next door and Desmond couldn't bear leaving him alone for too long. So, giving the bed a somewhat longing look, he gathered what strength he still could muster and stepped back out in the silent hallway.

Altaïr's door, like Desmond's, had some kind of security lock on it, though the Assassin's had been engaged. Desmond shook his head and used his new card to unlock it. He knocked and then hit the switch so the door slid open when no answer came.

Altaïr stood at the centre of the room, with his back to the door and seemingly in the same place they had left him. He was massaging his left hand again, pressing down on the knuckle of his missing finger.

_"Is something wrong with your hand?" _Desmond asked.

Altaïr dropped his hands by his side and stood perfectly still.

Later, in the perfection of hindsight, Desmond would be able to recount the warning signs. The way Altaïr adjusted his footing ever so slightly, how his shoulders tensed just a little, the angle of his head and the way his hands spread out from his body. Desmond had never seen this, but he had been there, had felt the pull of muscle, the sudden jump in his heart and the rush of adrenaline to his head.

Altaïr _moved _faster than the eye could follow, twisted around and sprang. He got hold of Desmond's arm and kicked his feet away from under him. As Desmond buckled helplessly, Altaïr caught him by the throat with his left hand, fingers digging in mercilessly. Altaïr got hold of Desmond's arm and crashed them both into the wall with force, driving the air from Desmond's lungs and making the back of his head hit the concrete. Desmond's vision swam from the blow and the lack of oxygen. He flailed his free arm and kicked out with his legs, until Altaïr lessened the pressure on his throat just enough to allow him a minimum of breath.

_"Why?" _Altaïr hissed, face too close, his eyes ablaze with cold fury. _"Why do you wear my face?" _

He slammed Desmond's hand into the wall, hard enough to make Desmond wince with sudden pain before his wrist got inexplicably numb and was let go.

_"Why do you wear my scar?" _Altaïr continued, dragged a hard thumb over Desmond's lip. _"How dare you? What sort of ghost are you? What trick are you using on me?"_

Desmond opened his mouth, but couldn't get words out, reduced to staring back at Altaïr's gaze and all he could think of was just how many people must have seen something just like that, right before they died. He remembered such moments well enough, brought to the fore, now that he was on the receiving end of it, when it was a far more frightening concept. Altaïr had been trained to kill since childhood, if he didn't _want _to hesitate, he wouldn't. Whatever natural compassion he might hold for his target, it would never be more than a necessary evil, taken and discarded if the situation called for it.

What made things worse — so much worse than that — was that Desmond remembered too much. His mind had some inkling on how to break this hold, or how he could have avoided it in the first place, but he lacked the coordination and the speed, never mind the new strength science had bred into Altaïr's cloned body.

Desmond had no idea how long he was held there. A minute, or an eternity, it felt much the same to him and staring into Altaïr's eyes as they looked back at him, studying his struggles and mounting desperation with nothing but clinical interest.

"Please," Desmond croaked, though he wasn't sure if it was audible at all.

Altaïr squeezed harder and Desmond couldn't breathe anymore. He renewed his struggles, scrambling for some kind of hold on Altaïr's shoulders, pulled on the shirt, scratching at the back of Altaïr's neck and the hair cut too short to get a hold on.

Altaïr let him go and stepped out of reach before Desmond had time to slump to the floor, wheezing and coughing, vision going blurry with the strain. Altaïr followed up with a kick in the stomach and Desmond curled up on his side, too tired to put up even a token fight. Hurt, out-of-breath and almost certain he was going to die.

Of course, if Altaïr had wanted him dead, he could have done any number of quicker and more painful things to him than this. If Altaïr meant to kill, there was no need for a preamble. Unless he wanted to play, that was, the thought flitted through Desmond's shaky awareness. Altaïr didn't, usually, but he had been perfectly willing to make exceptions sometimes, though Desmond had always had the impression Altaïr preferred to bury that part of him.

Slowly, with nothing happening, Desmond's breath calmed somewhat, his heart didn't beat quite as hard anymore. There was a painful scratching in his throat, the memory of fingers there, crushing the life from him. Desmond forced his eyes open, watched Altaïr's feet as the Assassin paced in front of him.

_"Please," _Desmond said again, in Arabic this time in the vague hope it would get through better. _"I'm not the enemy." _

The pacing stopped. Desmond had the feeling that Altaïr was looking down at him, contemplative in a moment of perfect balance between a hundred different forms of violence.

Altaïr made no answer and Desmond eventually forced his head to turn and look back at him. It seemed to be what Altaïr had been waiting for. He took a step away, but glanced back at Desmond to make sure his attention was on him.

_"Why can I do this?" _Altaïr asked, shifted his feet and delivered a hard kick on the lock of the door. The steel gave way as if it were cardboard. The lock hit the opposite wall with a metal-on-concrete crack. The door itself and its frame deformed and broke under the force, leaving a large, gaping hole.

A shrill alarm went off and Altaïr flinched, ducking and retreating from the door in surprise.

So much for Altaïr not knowing about his 'superpowers', Desmond thought. He probably could have punched the door in with his bare hands, too.

Carefully, Desmond unfurled from his foetal position, feeling the cramped pain in his torso. He wondered if Altaïr had cracked a rip. In fact, Desmond would have rather liked to just keep lying there for a little while.

_"I'm real," _Desmond stressed. It'd be only a moment until some kind of security showed up and when he wasn't back on his feet by then, the situation wouldn't be recoverable. Desmond struggled to his feet slowly.

Altaïr had withdrawn further from the door into the comparative shadow at the back of the room, his stance was alert, though Desmond couldn't tell if he was leaning more towards fight or flight.

_"God, Altaïr, you know I'm real," _Desmond continued. His voice sounded rough from the language and his damaged throat. He pulled himself up, leaned into the wall for support. _"You know how it felt, right? In the garden? When Al Mualim tried to trick you? This is nothing like that. You know! Dammit, please, you must know!"_

Helplessly, he shook his head. "I don't know what else to tell you."

Running footsteps could be heard out in the hallway and Desmond braced himself. He fished the security card from his back pocket and struck it out on an extended hand when the first security guard appeared in the opening.

The man, in full riot gear, missing only the shield, stopped dead, eying first the card, then Desmond. At least three more men were in the hallway outside.

"What the hell happened here?" the guard demanded.

Desmond took a shaky breath. "Culture shock," he said. "I'm sorry about the door. And the wall." He looked past the guard's shoulder. "And the wall outside. Can you turn off the alarm? I can't hear myself think." _And we _really _don't want to spook Altaïr more, _he added in his mind.

The guard hesitated, but someone behind him made a call and a moment later, the alarm was turned off.

The guard relaxed just a little, fixing Desmond. "What happened here?" he asked again.

"Like I said," Desmond shook his head. "I think it's under control." It wasn't, but telling them wouldn't help. Desmond pulled his gaze away from the guard to search for Altaïr. The Assassin had moved again, shifted into where the shadow was deepest, almost managing to blend with his surrounding. The security guards had paid barely any attention to him.

Vaguely, despite the situation, Desmond thought about how some old tricks never seemed to go out of fashion.

"Call Lucy Stillman, yeah?" Desmond said. "She'll tell you what to do. Just… leave us alone for a moment, will you?"

The guard frowned, looking Desmond up and down. "You need a doctor."

"Yes, so call ahead. I won't drop dead right now. I'll be by in a minute. Please?"

Another guard called from the hallway, "Ms. Stillman says to give him some space."

The guard seemed unhappy with this, giving the ruined door another critical look, but finally he nodded. He passed an attentive gaze around the room, this time lingering on Altaïr for a moment longer. He looked back at Desmond. "We are down the hallway," he said and withdrew.

Desmond breathed again and it seemed to come a little easier this time. _"Altaïr?" _

The Assassin didn't react at first, confusion warring with anger on his face. Nothing could possibly make sense to him, Desmond realised, how did you make a decision under such circumstances?

_"I could kill you," _Altaïr said eventually. _"And this would not vanish." _

Desmond wasn't sure if it was a question or not. _"No, it wouldn't. I…" _he stopped, momentarily at a loss. _"You could always trust your instincts, I…I saw it. I felt it. Even facing the Piece of Eden, they didn't desert you. Why would they now?" _

_"I don't know," _Altaïr said with the earnestness of a death warrant. His stance relaxed slightly and the tension bled away. _"You've shown me nothing."_

"Shit," Desmond said before he could stop himself. Through the pain, he felt his thoughts racing, desperately looking for some magic phrase to use, something — anything — to ease that distrust.

_"I don't know, either," _Desmond said. _"But I have an idea. Just, you know, I need a doctor and I need to talk to Lucy. Please, if there is just a tiny part of you that _maybe _believes me, can you wait for me? Only a few minutes and I'll do what I can to make it right. This could be an illusion, god knows it's probably the most likely explanation from where you're standing, but what if it's not? What if I'm real and this is and we really need your help. The world, _all _the world is on the verge of collapse. Can't you just give me a chance? Just because the stakes are so high?"_

Altaïr didn't look convinced, but at least he made no move to attack either. Maybe because the alarm had him on edge and he couldn't calculate the risk, or maybe because some of what Desmond was saying was getting through to him.

Desmond couldn't help a startled flinch when Altaïr _did_ move, though he only took a step to the side and leaned one shoulder into the wall, relaxed like the tiger about to pounce.

_"I broke nothing," _he said. _"But see your doctor. I will be here. Tell the others to stay away." _

Desmond didn't know how relieve felt before he had heard Altaïr make that tiny admission. He had bought them all another chance, but it was likely the last Altaïr was willing to give. Clearly, the Assassin wasn't a man easily daunted, but the pressure of his situation would fracture him sooner rather than later, unless Desmond helped him find some kind of satisfying answer. Desmond hadn't known how deep Altaïr's suspicion of the Apple truly ran, how badly damaged he might have been by witnessing it's power mere moments before he woke up in the most alien places of all.

Cursing under his breath, Desmond dragged himself fully on his feet and shuffled through the hole in the wall.

* * *

"Nothing broken or cracked," had been the doctor's assessment after he'd prodded and x-rayed Desmond. "Badly bruised, however. I advise against strain for a while."

A few minutes after that, Desmond sat on a bed while a nurse wrapped bandages around his chest. His wrist, throbbing, was already packed in bandages and rested limply by his side. He did his best not to meet Lucy's gaze from where she stood across the room, her arms crossed over her chest and looking decidedly displeased.

"You have no idea how lucky you are," Lucy pointed out when the nurse had finished. He left a pack of painkillers with the suggestion to only take any if it got too bad.

"Actually, I do," Desmond said. "You just made me run around the Holy Land killing people in Altaïr's skin. Not that many people got to talk about the experience. If he'd wanted me dead, I'd be dead. Great security, by the way. I'm pretty sure my body would still have been warm by the time they showed up."

Lucy tightened her mouth into a displeased grimace. "That's not what I meant. You got lucky I stopped the news before it got anywhere near Vidic or even higher up. But that's just for tonight. Someone will report that giant hole in the wall."

"And what of it?" Desmond snapped, finally out of patience. He was tired and in pain and a time bomb was ticking away at the back of his head. He had no idea how long Altaïr was willing to give him. "What would you do? Shoot us both in the head? That'd gain you nothing, would it? Never mind that at this point in time, I'm pretty sure Altaïr would put up a fight and I'd be betting on him. So, I have a favour to ask."

He could tell by her expression that he had hit a nerve and she wasn't quite willing to admit it.

"What favour?"

"Let us out of here. I mean, look at this place. It looks like we are on a spaceship even for me. You can't tell Altaïr that's what the world's like now. He can't comprehend it. This being an illusion just seems the only good explanation. Let me take him outside. The real world. Where there are streets and houses and normal people."

Lucy frowned, "He beats you to a pulp you want to let him out?"

"I still got some crunchy bits, but, yes, hurts like hell, but I get it. I get him. You made sure of that when you stuck in the Animus. I can sell this to him, it's just not so easy. If you wanted docile, you should have cloned someone else."

"I'm not sure I can do that," Lucy said. "It isn't like Abstergo still trusts me."

Desmond attempted an encouraging smile, but he didn't think he was making a good show of it. "But you've got your ways, haven't you?"

She thought about and Desmond could tell she was mapping a way for them in her mind already. He tried not to show his triumph.

"What if Altaïr kills someone out there?" she asked. "I'm certain we could stop him in here, in the streets of Rome, I doubt it."

"We are in Rome?" Desmond asked. "You brought me to Italy?"

Lucy waved him off. "It's a serious question, Desmond. If I let you both out, who controls him?"

"You _don't. _That's the point. If you've forgotten how tired he got of someone yanking his chain, you should review some of our Animus sessions."

"And what about the people out there?" Lucy insisted. "What about _their_ safety?"

Desmond jumped from the bed, tried an experimental stretch of his body and arm to relax cramped muscles. "It's the only thing I can think of, okay? I can't guarantee anything. I'm… well, I guess I'm taking a leap of faith. I really think it could work."

Lucy went still, face set in exhausted contemplation. If this blew up, it would all be on her head, not Altaïr's, not Desmond's. It would be her who paid for it. At the same time, Desmond had a good feeling about it. Rome would be a good thing, too, he supposed. Extensive historic city parts and all that, they wouldn't look nearly as alien to Altaïr as other places. If Altaïr saw the change, saw the mark of centuries as they passed, maybe it would make their story more palatable to him.

Lucy rubbed the side of her nose as she considered her , she dropped her hand and straightened. She said, "Meet me at the elevator after you pick up Altaïr. There is a pizzeria across the plaza from Abstergo. It's pretty late, but they should still be open. Just the plaza and the pizza parlour, promise me that? You won't go further and you come back as early as you can."

"I promise," Desmond said without thinking. If he couldn't hold that promise, he supposed he'd be having worse problems anyway.

* * *

_End of Chapter 3_

* * *

**Reference:**

"Sometimes the only sane response to an insane world is insanity." — Fox Mulder, X-Files, 3x07 The Walk

* * *

_**Edit: **Ugh, bad bad math error. That's 90 million, of course, not a billion. No kill like overkill, right? _

* * *

**Feedback welcome!**


	4. When in Rome

**Revision Note: **Thanks to _KrimzonGuard Bites BaronP_ for bringing my large blunder in regards to modern vs. medieval languages to my attention. The story has been fixed to reflect the discrepancies.

* * *

**4. When in Rome**

* * *

It wasn't the Rome Desmond had visited shortly after he had ran away from home. True, things changed in so many years, but this was _Rome, _the Eternal, she should not have been subject to such a fate. Of course Desmond could have expected it, after what he had seen and heard. The US was no longer a safe place and it seemed everyone who could had tried to bring as much water between them and the Outbreak as they could.

The Abstergo building was a sprawling structure of steel and glass and washed concrete surrounded by parking spots and walled off on three sides and guarded by armed personnel. The plaza Lucy had mentioned was small, surrounded by other modern buildings. A large fountain dominated the centre of the plaza, ugly in a modern Mediterranean corporate art style that couldn't decide quite what it wanted to be.

Even though it was late, there were a lot of people about, but not the revellers Desmond would have expected. Rome, or at least this small portion of it, seemed hopelessly overcrowded. People sat around in doorways and windows and balconies. Others hurried across the plaza, carrying food or other bags. Everyone had something in their eyes, the look a person gets when even fear and hopelessness have burned out.

It wasn't nearly as bad as it could be. Europe was rich, but Desmond thought he could already see it begin to crumble under the pressure of a steady stream of refugees. Economies must be collapsing — or already had — when the US was caught in a permanent state of emergency, its population decimated or far worse. Desmond thought he could already smell it in the air, a feel of premonition, knowing where it would end.

He stopped just a few steps away from Abstergo's front doors, taking it all in. It was winter and winter in Italy was wet. It hadn't snowed or frozen in years, not since climate change was crawling steadily north, but the wind still had a hint of bite to it. The damp air pressed the scent of smog and ozone to the street and held it there.

Altaïr stepped at his side without making a sound, followed the direction of his gaze, but Desmond was too lost in his own contemplation to pay attention to him. He couldn't even begin to wonder what Altaïr saw and thought about all this.

For the first time, Desmond thought he had an idea of what held Lucy, what forced her to make the compromises she had. Why the Assassins were working openly with the Templars.

Desmond only gave Altaïr a quick look and then hurried to a newspaper kiosk not far away, scanning the headlines for anything recognisable. He didn't understand much, but the pictures alone were frightening. One picture caught him especially. It was a before/after shot of some refugee camp, presumable somewhere in America. In the first picture it looked almost more like a caravan site with people on holiday. On the other picture, the camp had been overrun by zombies. Walkers, they had been called in the files. Tents had been torn down and people lay strewn around on the floor, often gutted or dismembered or _partially eaten. _

Other newspapers had similar pictures. Sometimes they were of ruined cities, sometimes it was bomb craters. Other times it was a shot, clearly from a helicopter, of a horde of Walkers, some larger and far more gruesome beasts marching between them.

Altaïr was no longer by his side.

The blood froze in Desmond's veins as he realised it, the second shock tearing him from the first. He twisted around to scan the plaza. Could Altaïr hide like this? Could he sense and feel his way through a modern metropolis without getting overwhelmed?

Turning again, Desmond finally spotted Altaïr at the edge of the plaza, where parked cars lined reduced the street to just one line and drivers conducted complicated negotiations on who would be allowed to drive first.

Desmond ignored the newspapers for now and ran over, trying and failing to seem anything but frantic. It had seemed a good idea to get Altaïr away from Abstergo, but it occurred to Desmond just how difficult it could be to get him back in. Lucy had had it right: There was no way to control him now. They'd let the tiger out of the cage and into the wild.

Altaïr seemed fascinated rather than afraid of the cars, studying them with calm interest.

_"It's a car," _Desmond said, a little helplessly. He didn't know what or how to explain this. Where would he even start? Had he really signed up for this task? Because it had read more like 'give pep-talk to killer' in the contract.

Altaïr tilted his head to look at him past the length of his nose. It gave his face a haughty cast, emphasised the cold of his eyes.

When Altaïr said nothing, Desmond tried, _"Should we walk around? We could circle the square and come back here. See a bit more, yeah?" _

Altaïr gave a slow nod and stepped back from the street.

Desmond strode off in a random direction, followed the outline of the square and did his damned not to look too closely at his companion, though that proved something of a challenge. Altaïr didn't make any noise as he walked and kept just far enough away from Desmond so his presence was nigh invisible. He could slip away at any moment, vanish in the crowd and not be seen again until he chose to be. It was unnerving. But Altaïr made no attempt to leave.

_"We are in Rome, by the way," _Desmond said, hoping for some kind of reaction, but again, Altaïr said nothing.

In the silence, Desmond tried to see it all through Altaïr's eyes. It wasn't so hard to draw on his memories, if he concentrated. Something of Altaïr still lingered at the back of his mind and Desmond had the nagging feeling it wouldn't fade any time soon. Lucy had called it the Bleeding Effect and Vidic had shushed her, so it must be something he didn't want Desmond to know about. By that time, however, Desmond had it already figured out, at least most of it. He could _feel _it, after all, giving it a name only dragged it out in the open. A part of Altaïr had bled into him and made it's home inside.

And Altaïr, for all the strangeness of the place, saw much that was familiar. The shape of the houses might be different, taller than most of what he recognised and markedly cleaner than the large cities of his era had been, but you could still scale these walls and find a perch on the edge of the roof. The noise and the stink had other flavours, but they were still the essential traces of too many people in too little space. And the people? Their clothes were odd and they wore their hair in new fashions, but nothing was truly alien.

Desmond breathed a secret sigh of relief, though he would have liked to get _some _acknowledgement from Altaïr directly, but it might work. He hadn't made up some magical story for Lucy just so he could pretend he was doing something.

_"Are you hungry?" _Desmond asked. _"You haven't eaten anything before." _

They had passed the pizza place Lucy had mentioned early in their round and were nearly back. Desmond had avoided looking at the newspapers as they came by the kiosk, but the images still haunted him.

Altaïr stopped walking and Desmond, acutely fixated on the Assassin's whereabouts, stuttered to a halt. Feeling his gaze on him, Altaïr made a small gesture with his hand, giving the hint of a nod. Better than nothing, Desmond guessed.

The pizzeria was one of the shabbier looking buildings, though with friendly red curtains visible through the small windows. It's sign glowed a warm, welcoming orange, very close to real firelight.

The place was packed and noisy. Desmond heard several languages, most of it English and Spanish mixed in with more native Italian. A waiter, visibly overworked, waved them toward the bar counter where a handful of seats had just been deserted by a middle-aged couple.

Risking life and limb, Desmond gripped hold of Altaïr's arm and pulled him in the right direction. He didn't want to risk losing the seats because he had to give a lengthy explanation of why they should hurry. He felt Altaïr briefly stiffen under his grip, but make no move to get free.

_"I used to work in a place like this," _Desmond said. Technically, not really. He'd been working nightclubs, mostly, but he didn't think it made much of a difference to Altaïr. The young woman behind the bar gave them a hectic smile and Desmond nodded. It might be a little while before she came by.

_"Your face," _Altaïr said, startling Desmond. _"You still have said nothing." _

He couldn't start with the easy questions, could he? Desmond thought. He'd much rather explain cars and cellphones than why they resembled each other so much. And he wasn't sure he had _any _explanation whatsoever for the scar.

_"Let's pretend you believe we are eight hundred years in your future," _Desmond said. _"Then it would kind of make sense for me to be your descendant, wouldn't it?" _

He didn't even need to look to feel Altaïr's frown sizzling into the side of his face.

_"I have no children," _he said eventually.

"And contraception was all the rage where you come from," Desmond muttered. He wasn't completely sure how much or how well Altaïr understood modern English, but this time the silence was heavy with incomprehension.

_"How would you even know?" _Desmond asked.

Altaïr made a sound which, from a different man and under different circumstances, could have been considered a snigger.

Desmond glanced at him and saw the last glimmer of the smile before Altaïr's stoic expression returned. Desmond made a mental note to ask Lucy about Altaïr's future. The man from those memories, he had walked away from Al Mualim's corpse and he had lived another life somewhere in the distance of time and space. Desmond wondered if he, at least, had found some peace.

_"I am pretending," _Altaïr offered. _"But how can you bear my scar?" _

Desmond rolled his eyes. _"I'm wondering the same thing. Some weird coincidence? Some predisposition to catch thrown rocks with our mouth?"_

The bar tender had finally got around to paying attention to them. She came over and said several very fast lines in Italian and Desmond stared at her.

_"What is carpaccio?" _Altaïr asked. The bartender did a double take at the language, but then seemed to decide she didn't care.

"What?" Desmond asked, not quite sure who he meant.

She looked at Altaïr and when she found no response there, she turned her attention to Desmond. "Carpaccio is out," she pointed out. "Please?"

"Uh," Desmond made, eloquently. "Just two bruschetta with tomato and a bottle of wine."

He couldn't go too wrong with that, even if he wasn't sure whether wine was a good or a terrible idea. It had the potential to be both. The bartender nodded and hurried off, yelling her order in the vague direction of the kitchen.

_"Sliced raw meat," _Desmond explained belatedly. _"You understood that?" _

Altaïr merely shrugged and made no answer, but Desmond felt the weight of his gaze again and it made the hair at the back of his neck stand on edge. He wouldn't attack him again, would he? Because he had seemed to be warming up a little and Desmond hated the thought of it all blowing up in his face. And probably breaking his nose in the process.

_"I hurt you worse than I intended," _Altaïr said unexpectedly.

_"It's…" _Desmond started and stopped before he said something stupid like 'not so bad', because that'd be a blatant lie. _"It's okay if you believe me." _

_"I am pretending," _Altaïr said. He swivelled around on the stool, put the bar at his back to survey the room.

Desmond saw the bartender as she turned to the stereo at the back of the bar and switched it on. Music came on above the din, filling what residues of quiet still remained in the room. Something schmalzy and Italian, for the people who weren't depressed enough yet.

Altaïr tensed his shoulders at the sudden sound, but must have found the music non-threatening even if he didn't know where it came from.

The bartender brought their wine and two plates.

_"Benigne," _Altaïr said, watching the waitress carefully. She frowned, but obviously lacked the time to inquire over her guests strange choice of words.

_"What was that?" _Desmond asked. _"And you really understood what she said?"_

_"Not entirely. It is a kind of Latin, is it not?"_

Desmond considered it, _"Sort of," _he finally said. _"Latin, really? What else do you speak?" _Desmond asked.

_"Some German and French," _Altaïr said as he picked up the piece of toasted bread. _"A little Greek. Your English is strange." _

Desmond said nothing, it was a difficult point to dispute. But it would be a good idea to remember that not much seemed to pass Altaïr by. He had spotted the Assassins among them, even those deviating from the norm. No doubt, he knew there were Templars. He had sensed the changes made to his body and he had even noticed that the English he now understood had little in common with the English he had heard from the crusaders.

The wine was dark, a rich colour, nearly black in the dim light of the bar. It's heady scent filled the air as Desmond poured them each a glass. He couldn't recall Altaïr's stance on alcohol. He hadn't touched anything while chasing the Templars for Al Mualim, or at least not during those passage that Desmond had actively shared, but who knew what he had been up to on his own?

_"What help do you need?" _Altaïr asked and it took Desmond a moment to remember what this was all about.

_"A plague has come over us," _Desmond began. _"But it's more than that. It's… difficult to explain. There is a man. I mean, there _was _a man, but now he's something else. He's the plague itself, he's the beginning of it. I can show you the pictures when we get back. The Templars and the others, they think if this man could be killed, then the plague would end." _

_"You do not believe," _Altaïr observed. He picked up the glass, watched Desmond through its crimson brilliance so it put red streaks in his gaze. But Desmond shrugged it off. He hadn't realised how hungry he was until the food was right in front of him. He dived in, revelling in the fresh taste. Abstergo's cafeteria food couldn't ever hope to compete.

_"I don't know," _Desmond said honestly. _"I've been a friend of these people about ten minutes longer than you. I was their hostage before that." _

_"Why do they need me to kill this plague carrier?" _Altaïr asked.

Desmond considered his answer carefully, still chewing on his bread and using it to stall. Why, indeed? None of the answers Desmond could fabricate would be very convincing. First of all, Desmond supposed Altaïr was convenient. They already had part of him on file from Desmond's Animus sessions. He had the DNA and he had an impressive skillset. At the very least, it was easier than starting from scratch, certainly.

_"Do you remember Arsuf?" _Desmond asked. He looked at Altaïr from the corner of his eyes. _"Because I do. I was there, I lived it with you, that machine you woke up on made it possible."_

_"What of Arsuf?" _

"What of Arsuf?" Desmond repeated, incredulous. One man, just one fucking man walks onto a battlefield between two of the greatest armies of their time. Just one. Alone, and he is tired and reeling inside from the truths he had learned. Nothing that crosses his path survives.

And he comes away with barely a scratch.

_"Well, they want you to do _that _to the plague carrier." _

_"There is no one else?" _

Desmond thought about that. _"It's been going on for months. I don't think they've got anyone else left." _

And I don't think there has ever been, Desmond added in his mind. He also didn't say that he doubted it would be enough. Mercer was too strong and too inhuman to be fought at human terms. Whatever Abstergo and Gentek had done to level the playing field, Desmond doubted Mercer would as much as pause for breath before he was through. If he still breathed at all.

_"The wine is good," _Altaïr observed.

Desmond looked at him. He didn't immediately recognise what he saw there. An odd calm seemed to have settled on Altaïr. He had become a point of stillness and silence in the noise and jumble of the pizzeria. Something in him had settled, whether he was pretending or not, when he had been offered a purpose he could understand. Desmond didn't know whether it was enough, in the long run.

_"What happened in Masyaf?" _Altaïr asked and hesitated. _"What _happens_ there when I'm here? How does it continue?"_

_"I'd rather explain what a 'car' is," _Desmond said sourly.

_"Some kind a self-moving vehicle." _

Desmond sighed. He thought he might be developing a habit. _"History happened the way it did. We changed nothing in the past when we brought you here." _

He paused and studied the Assassin's expression again and his new calm. In many ways, he was more frightening, now that he seemed to have regained some of his control.

_"How?" _

_"Every person," _Desmond began, picking each word but still not liking the sound very much. _"Has a kind of map, or, well, a chronicle? Written inside their blood. Everything we are, everything we experience in our life is recorded there and passed on to our children. Because I'm your descendent you are in my blood, too. And we used that to bring you back. To build you." _

Desmond could tell Altaïr either didn't believe him or found the description uselessly esoteric. It was what Desmond thought about it, at any rate, but he really was at an utter loss. Genetic memory? Cloning? Desmond was very sure _he _didn't get all of that, never mind translate it in a way Altaïr would understand.

_"I'm not the same me as I was in Masyaf," _Altaïr said, half in question, half in statement. There wouldn't be any disconnect, Desmond knew. The memories had been his all along, there would be nothing foreign, no seams where the fake had been put together. Altaïr had no reason to doubt his identity.

_"In a way," _Desmond conceded. _"You don't have to worry about them." _

_"They are all dead." _

Desmond tried for a quick smile of his own. _"That would only matter if you really believed me. Not if you're just pretending." _

_"There is that," _Altaïr said and there was the hint of an answering smile.

_"The wine really is very good," _he added and the topic was gone, Desmond released from its chokehold.

* * *

Five minutes. Desmond swore he had been gone for barely five minutes. Well, maybe ten, because only one toilet stall was working, but the line wasn't that long. A man needed a bathroom break, right? Altaïr didn't, apparently, and Desmond hadn't quite the guts to make them go together like a couple of schoolgirls. What could go wrong? Altaïr had seemed relaxed, curious and vaguely confused on occasion, but hardly murderous.

Emptying the wine, they had spoken little, but it had been a companionable silence for all that. Altaïr had given no indication whether he was still only playing along until he could sink his teeth into his enemy, or whether the utterly solid atmosphere of the pizzeria was beginning to win him over.

And there, like it was mocking Desmond and his lulled wariness, was the empty stool. Five minutes, how far could Altaïr get in just five minutes? Or even ten? And where would he go and what would he do there? Desmond's thoughts raced, wondering what Lucy would do to him if he had somehow managed to lose their precious asset. He wondered if he maybe could book a flight to America and commit suicide by zombie, it was likely a less painful death.

He didn't find himself particularly funny just then. And he wasn't sure he was joking.

"Desmond!"

Desmond jolted around at the accent-rough sandpaper sound of his name. He managed not to knock over the people streaming past him for the restrooms, but Desmond was momentarily perfectly unable to move out of the way.

Altaïr had joined a man and a woman at their tiny table, god only knew where he had found an empty chair. He looked casual and relaxed, almost amused as he caught Desmond's gaze and tipped his head to the side to make Desmond join them.

As he walked over, the woman pushed an empty chair his way that Desmond hadn't seen in the gloom and past the people. He sat down carefully, on the edge of his seat.

"You were right," the man remarked. "There _are_ two of them. How did I not spot that?"

The woman grinned, "Lucky you, your chances just doubled."

They both sounded American, something north-east-ish, Desmond couldn't exactly place them. He blinked slowly.

"We are invited to another bottle," Altaïr explained.

Desmond nodded mutely and managed a wan smile for their hosts. In Arabic, he said, _"I leave you alone for five minutes and you get hit on?" _

_"Should I not have accepted?" _Altaïr asked and the question was, for once, entirely unguarded. Desmond sensed it more than heard, the sudden worry of having accidentally broken some important custom due to ignorance. A strange culture was always full of such pitfalls and this one, for Altaïr, more than most.

Desmond took a breath to steady himself and then slumped in his chair. He shook his head, "It's fine," he said. "I'm just… surprised."

"I'm sorry if we blindsided you like that," the woman said. "Wasn't the intention."

Well, Desmond thought, at least Altaïr hadn't wandered off to slaughter someone to break the Apple's spell. He guessed he should be thankful for small favours. Desmond allowed himself to relax a little more.

"It's unexpected, that's all," Desmond said. "My name is Desmond."

"I'm Cari," the woman said. "And he's gay."

"Yeah," Jake laughed. "And called _Jake_. She's been that doing every time she introduces me. Good thing I don't mind, or we'd have stopped being friends when we were teenagers."

"Altaïr," the Assassin said.

"So what was that you were speaking?" Cari asked. "Where are you from? You brothers?"

"Arabic, but we are really from lots of places," Desmond said breezily. "I worked in Nice as a bartender for a bit. Came here because I heard there was better work."

"Cousins," Altaïr supplied, for his own reasons.

"No one has work," Jake grimaced. "Cari and I, we came over, you know, from the US? Half a year ago, before it got really bad."

"My uncle is the captain of a freighter," she said. "He allowed us to stow away, they weren't allowing refugee ships into their ports at the time, afraid of the infection. We've been getting by, after a fashion, but there's just too many people."

"You fled the plague?" Altaïr asked.

"God, it's quite the piece of work," Jake said, rubbing a hand down his face. "Can we not talk about it? I just wanted to have a good meal, get buzzed and maybe get laid later."

"Hint hint wink wink nudge nudge," Cari said into her glass.

"Uhm, I'm afraid not," Desmond said with an apologetic smile and quietly to the side, _"But I don't know about you." _

Altaïr didn't react and a quick glance his way revealed that Altaïr hadn't really paid attention after the topic of the plague had come up and been dropped. He studied both Cari and Jake in silence. He reached for his own glass, settled back in his chair and let his gaze come to rest on Jake.

"I do not wish to pressure you," he said and Desmond was likely the only one genuinely surprised to hear his voice laced with sympathy. "But my profession has kept me very busy and I have not had a chance to speak with someone who has first hand experience with this plague."

"Wow, that's an achievement," Cari remarked. "You sure you'd not rather stay ignorant?"

"I wish I was," Jake added, meeting Altaïr's gaze as if something else, unspoken passed between them. Jake took a deep breath, trailing the stem of his wineglass distractedly.

"A woman down the road from where I was living, she'd caught it," he began. "She commuted to work, somewhere in centre of Pittsburgh or something. I don't know her name, just saw her around the neighbourhood sometimes. Anyway, in Pittsburgh, the infection sort of slipped in without anyone noticing. It wasn't like further south, you know? Where they had this huge horde of these freaks just flood into the streets like the goddamn great flood? So this woman picks it up somewhere, maybe in the train station or something. So she comes home and this is one of those nice, warm fall days and her husband has invited some people for a barbecue."

Jake stopped, laughed a little to himself. "No one knew how bad it'd become. I mean, it looked pretty bad on TV, but that's just… TV. It's not real. Not the real sort of real, know what I mean?"

Probably didn't, Desmond thought, unless Altaïr made the connection from 'TV' to the things they had shown him on the computers. He wouldn't put it past him, but his expression remained unchanged, quietly focused on Jake and giving no indication he failed to comprehend. In the end, Desmond supposed, the specifics perhaps didn't even matter, when the grim truth was plain in the open.

Desmond thought of the newspaper pictures he had seen earlier and how affected he had been. In many ways, he was much in the same boat as Altaïr. He didn't know, he had been under while all of this happened. And a part of him still didn't quite believe Abstergo hadn't made all of it up, just to ensure his cooperation.

"I heard the screaming," Jake said. "And from the window I saw people running away. Never seen anything like that. And the woman appeared, _jumped _over the garden wall as if it was nothing. Landed and looked like an animal. Her clothes were torn and the flesh was deformed. I thought she had burned herself or something, all angry red, like open wounds, but the sound she made… Humans don't sound like that. And she starts running after the others, sometimes on all fours, like she's an animal or something and she's fast. She catches some, tears them up with her bare hands or bites into their necks. By then, blood's everywhere in the street, parts of bodies are strewn around. It looks like a scene from a splatter, really."

He tightened his grip on his glass. "Kind of funny, when you think about it. It's just so… exaggerated."

Cari reached for the bottle and silently filled Jake's glass to the brim.

"Way to kill the mood," she said with a grimace.

And because Altaïr said nothing, it was Desmond, "I'm sorry."

Jake waved them off, put the glass to his lips and emptied it in great gulps. "Nevermind. At least the company is handsome."

The silence hung heavily over their table, an odd island of gloom among the otherwise relaxed atmosphere of the pizzeria. The soothing songs were surreal in a feeble attempt to belie the images Jake's tale had put inside their minds.

"Have you…?" Altaïr said, but Desmond's hand shot out before he had time to think about it, putting quick pressure on Altaïr's arm to shut him up.

_"No, don't," _Desmond said, too sharply. He felt the muscles in Altaïr's arm tense under his grip, but Desmond didn't care. Altaïr might have the stomach for such stories, he still needed to develop it.

"You really don't know this shit?" Cari asked incredulously. "It's not like our stories are special. You can ask just about anyone and get a similar story."

"Of course we know," Desmond said hastily. "But only from the news. It's not the same thing, you said it yourself."

Jake nodded and was silent for another moment, before he pulled himself together visibly, shaking free of his own memories.

"I think that's enough gore and dread for one evening. Can't live in the past, can we? No idea where it's going to go or anything, but right here and now, I can't really complain."

He looked first at Desmond, then at Altaïr and the cheeky smile of before brightened his features. "What are your plans for the rest of the night?"

"Don't mind him, he often comes across as needy," Cari announced, more to the inside of her glass.

"Needy? Bah, no. Just trying to enjoy myself before shit hits the fan. Well, _more _shit hits a bigger fan."

"Ah, sorry," Desmond said, experiencing a brief moment of sheer — and entirely mundane — horror at the thought of explaining that to Lucy and Vidic tomorrow. "Our boss is a hardass, we should probably turn in early."

Desmond didn't look at Altaïr, he had absolutely no desire to know what he thought about that proposition. And better to nip it in the bud before he thought of _agreeing_…

"They can…" Altaïr said and Desmond cut him off again.

"They can be nasty. And there will be trouble and I wouldn't know how to avoid it," Desmond said, feeling an unfamiliar growl crawl up his throat as he did. "We are going back to base and you can jerk off in the shower or _throw a table through a wall if you're frustrated. Get that?" _

He didn't look to see Altaïr raise one amused eyebrow. It was a rare gesture of mirth, but Desmond already knew it was there.

Cari chuckled. She pulled her cell out. "Okay if we exchange numbers? We only got the one phone, but we share everything anyway."

"Got no phone," Desmond lied. Lucy had forced him to take one, so she could track him if he went AWOL, but Desmond would rather not use it. "Security rule at work, makes you forget the thing at home."

"Wait, you aren't working for that big company across the square? Abstergo?" Cari asked. "I've been trying to get a job interview there, but they won't even let me as far as the front desk. Place's a fortress!"

Meanwhile, Jake had picked up a napkin and had fished a pen from his jacket.

"A word of advise," Desmond said. "Don't try it. Abstergo isn't the kind of company you want to work for. We only got in because I knew someone, but it's like you got sold into indentured servitude."

"We are not that hard up, yet," Jake agreed and pushed the napkin across the table between Altaïr and Desmond. "Still, you wanna hang out, kill another bottle of wine, whatever. Just call, would make my day."

Altaïr looked at the napkin and the scrawled numbers, he sent a very short glance at Desmond and only then did he pick it up and fold the thin paper neatly.

"Thank you," he said without any hint of irony.

* * *

"Where do I even start?" Desmond said as he strode back across the square with Altaïr.

_"Is something wrong?" _

Desmond gestured with his hands. "Wrong? No, not really, just… you…" He stopped himself. "I didn't even know you were into guys!"

_"I do not know what you are trying to say," _Altaïr said and Desmond glared at him from the side, gauging whether Altaïr really misunderstood or was merely playing with him.

Desmond took a deep breath. "You aren't what I expected," he said finally. It was an unfair accusation, for many reasons. Desmond had had no business walking through half of Altaïr's memories the way he had and it certainly gave Desmond no right to make assumptions. Sure, it was what Abstergo expected of him, but it wasn't going to work like that.

_"Do you know what I am?" _Altaïr asked. They were passing the fountain and the rushing of its water framed Altaïr's words with white noise.

"What sort of question is that?" Desmond asked impatiently.

_"I'm an Assassin," _Altaïr said. _"I was never anything else. I am both the weapon and the one who wields it. It is my responsibilty to take care of myself. I thirst and I drink. I am tired, I will sleep. If I am wounded, I seek help or at least a bandage. If I am hungry… hunger comes in many forms and can be sated in many ways." _

"And I was almost certain you hadn't understood me," Desmond said, not sure if he should be annoyed or entertained.

_"Did you think your word alone would convince me of what you told me?"_

Away from the fountain, the square was quiet. It was late enough that most of the people were gone. The newspaper kiosk was closed and shuttered up, sparing Desmond the sight of the pictures. He thought he could sense them through the chipboard of its walls. Together with what Jake had said, Desmond found it far too easy to imagine what was truly happening, in this very moment, on the other side of the world.

"I have a question, too," Desmond said.

_"Go ahead." _

"Pretending this is real," Desmond said and allowed the slow-burning anger to seep into his voice. "Pretending this is my world right now. And it's all going down in flames. What do you think I should do?"

"You make a choice and you stand by it," Altaïr answered without even pausing to think.

"I don't have to make a choice," Desmond pointed out. "I have to make you believe me."

"I am pretending," Altaïr said.

Desmond supposed he shouldn't be surprised. Altaïr had never been merciful, but at least he liked Desmond enough to be honest about it.

* * *

_End of Chapter 4_

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

#01 For some reason, I'm having a very hard time to come up with good chapter titles for this fic.

#02 Altair and Desmond switch between speaking English and Arabic a lot, I didn't want to add it every time, but I think the normal/italic is distinct enough.

#03 **Please be warned:** I will be unable to sustain the rate of updates I'm having right now. I have never written as fast, but I don't think it'll last. At some point, I will have to sit down and figure out the details, not just the general direction. Still, enjoy it while it lasts.

#04 I don't think Altaïr is very well-suited to a fish-out-of-the-water humour. He's unlikely to willingly reveal his confusion or show his curiosity, especially if he thinks he might be surrounded by enemies. You are welcome to give criticism on this topic, but please understand I didn't make this decision without thinking about it beforehand.

* * *

**In regards to language:**

(Old) French and (Classic/Vulgar) Latin were administrative languages during the crusades. Speaking with King Richard, for example, would have happened in French. The footsoldiers of the crusades would most likely have spoken in their own local dialects, including variants of German, Italian, English or French. Modern languages mostly evolved later.

Arabic is somewhat less mutable than the European languages, due to the Qur'an being its normative work. Which is why I haven't included other middle eastern languages in Altaïr's repertoire. There don't seem to be any (local dialects aside, but it doesn't look like those diverge enough to be considered their own language.)

I hope I've patched the problem somewhat satisfactorily.

* * *

**Feedback welcome!**


	5. Human Perfection

**Notes: **Altaïr's Codex is stated not to be in Assassin hands in AC 2. Lets assume the Assassins, being stealthy, replaced all the pages in the hands of private collectors with copies. Rockport is close to where Connor's homestead was and it seems a far more suitable home for it. Yes, this is an entirely unnecessary change.

No one has yet tried explain to Altaïr what the hell a virus even is, the poor guy.

Some slight retconning in regards to Alex's (and Altaïr's) abilities take place. Don't overestimate those.

I am not a scientist! I'm reading up on this stuff, but there is a lot I'm likely to misunderstand or misinterpret. I apologise and please point unbearable errors out to me.

* * *

**5. Human Perfection**

* * *

In the morning, Desmond managed to wake himself up by rolling to the side and getting his bruised wrist stuck under his bruised ribs and the sudden, all-encompassing pain dragged him from his leaden sleep.

He groaned and rolled to the other side and while his hand was free, his ribs were bruised there, too. He rolled on his back and concentrated on his breathe and it _hurt. _He cursed to himself and finally woke himself up fully. Groaning, he turned his head to catch the digital numbers of the clock on the wall and startled. He sat up too quickly and whimpered with the pain and slight vertigo.

It was just before noon. True, it had been well past midnight by the time they had come back, but Desmond hadn't expected he would be allowed to sleep in. He rubbed his eyes, forcing himself to breath evenly through the pain. From somewhere, deep at the back of his mind, through the haze of lingering sleep, he felt the whisper of ancient discipline. He shouldn't be this weak, it told him cruelly. You don't lie around suffering and pitying yourself. Pain is nothing.

Desmond called the voice in his head several colourful names, derived a childish satisfaction from it and dragged himself to his feet.

He pulled the shirt off over his head and dropped it carelessly on the way to the shower.

Thanks to the fact that his room still had no window, the surreality of the situation would never be blown away by fresh air in mere morning light. He had vaguely hoped it would, actually, going to bed and falling asleep. Some vague idea along the lines of 'things will be different after a good night's sleep', as if a mere few hours spent in oblivion could offer release from his burdens. As if a bit of darkness and new light would make a difference.

Last night, he had been drinking wine with his own ancestor in a pizzeria. Granted, he was a clone with a copy-and-pasted memory, but what difference did that even make? If the copy was identical to the original, how do you even tell? Altaïr was real, in the present and he was alive in ways his memories had not been. Desmond had had glimpses of him, of course, but the moment the Assassin had stepped free of Desmond's mind and the confines of the Animus, he had become his own man. Abstergo didn't seem to be getting that part, or perhaps they were just too desperate.

A towel over his shoulder, but still dripping water all over the floor, Desmond went searching through the room for fresh clothes, cursing himself for not looking before, like a normal person. But really, was it any surprise he was confused? And he was in pain, too, dammit.

A knock came on the door just when Desmond opened the last drawer and found what he had been looking for.

"Gimme a moment!" he called and hurried back to the bathroom.

By the time he came back, Shaun had let himself in. He carried two paper coffee cups.

"Lucky you," Desmond declared with a smirk. "I could have flashed you."

Shaun shrugged. "Ain't nothing I haven't seen before, rest assured. But I come in peace, bearing coffee."

"Cafeteria?" Desmond asked with a grimace.

"Why yes, some things just don't change," Shaun said. "You can't know it, but while Lucy was trying to keep your mind together, I was keeping an eye on her from down in the lobby, manning — wait for it — the coffee stall. Same vile stuff, of course, but it's better than nothing, but I can't seem to shake it."

Desmond picked up the cup and pulled of the flimsy plastic lid, sniffed the coffee.

"So Lucy sends me to bring you up to speed on some of the things our new allies might not want you to know about," Shaun said. "Mind if I take a seat? No? Thank you."

He sat down on the foot of the bed, for lack of any other furniture. He pulled a small cube from his pocket and flipped a switch on its side.

"This should give us some privacy," he explained.

"You are really Assassins?" Desmond asked.

"Surely you realise that is a bloody foolish question?" Shaun asked back.

Desmond took a breath and managed not to flinch at the pain. "Yeah," Desmond conceded. He found the pack of painkillers from last night. Had the doctor said how many would be too many? He didn't recognise the name.

"You know how much I should take of these?" Desmond asked.

"I am really not qualified," Shaun said. "But take two and if we could perhaps get down to it?"

"Sure," Desmond said and popped two pills in his mouth, washed them down with the coffee, just about _not _scalding his tongue with the liquid.

"As you know, we are up against a very widespread viral infection."

"The zombie apocalypse," Desmond observed.

"Normally I would make fun of your juvenile mind, but, yes, it seems quite the suitable description," Shaun said, adjusting his glasses. "Blackwatch, Gentek and, of course, our dear Abstergo have all sorts of bodies hidden away. And they are not telling us. I'll give you an example: they are not telling us why they nuked a stretch of open water off the coast of New York and why it, somehow, ended the outbreak. During the second outbreak, they had a test subject running loose displaying much the same abilities as Zeus, but good luck finding any mention of it in the files. Gentek especially. I got a few hints out of Wyland and it seems Zeus had infiltrated their ranks, which in turn, makes practically everything from them suspect."

Desmond waited for some kind of surprise to manifest itself, but the only thing that happened was his coffee getting a little bit colder. He took a sip.

"You deal with the devil," he said, "these are the terms."

Shaun laughed. "You are on to something, I should think. Where was I? Ah, the virus. It has two distinct strains, one is called Redlight. Blackwatch would like to keep from us where they got it from, but we do know that sometime in the nineteen-sixties a clandestine US government operation unearthed 'something'," he air-quoted, "at Juneau, Alaska."

"You are looking at me as if it should mean something."

"Yes, it should. You retrieved the map, after all. The one from Altaïr's memories," Shaun slowed down his speech, putting an emphasis on every word. "The one with all the Vault locations? I see it's completely escaped your notice. Juneau was a Vault location."

"But I thought these Pieces of Eden were technology, not a virus."

"We don't know enough to draw such a conclusion. Maybe the virus was trapped in the Vault accidentally, or as a safety measure, or it could have been a bioweapon."

"If, what was it they were called? Those Who Came Before? If they left us the virus, maybe they've left us a cure? Or at least they'd know how to make one."

"That's the obvious conclusion," Shaun nodded. "But while the idea of an easy solution is appealing, I wouldn't put too much stock in it. Abstergo doesn't like us having access to this type of information, but there is very little they can do about it. We have a few cells still operational in America and around the globe, but the crisis has touched practically everything. Even movement is difficult, a concerted search even more so. It's sad to say, but the Templars are better suited to finding anything. However, if they do, I doubt they will share."

"But they would stop the infection, wouldn't they?" Desmond asked. "You can't brainwash all humans if they've gone extinct."

"Even if a cure exists for what they have originally dug up in Alaska, our problems go far beyond that. Blacklight is the other strain of the virus, made entirely by Gentek. Drive us all into extinction wasn't the original point of their research, but it's save to say it got there immensely fast. As for Zeus himself. Or _itself, _as the prescribed terminology goes, we have no idea what his capabilities are or how he can be stopped. Whatever the Precursors have hidden away, I rather doubt they were prepared for this."

"That thing about the clone army…" Desmond began.

Shaun choked back a chuckle. "It is a plan and, frankly, a disturbing one. However, they took ten months and enormous amount of money to get that one clone. It's an incredible achievement, but we won't have much more than one Altaïr in the near future, no matter what Abstergo has been telling Blackwatch just to get their greedy fingers on their data."

Desmond took a thoughtful sip of his cooling coffee, looking past Shaun at the floor where an earlier puddle was slowly drying up.

"Speaking of Altaïr, where is he?"

Shaun laughed, this time in real amusement. "I have to hand it to him, he isn't easily intimidated. I'm not shy to say, if I was teleported into the future, I would probably stay put until things made sense again. _He_, on the other hand, has been up since about five in the morning. Apparently, he was exploring. By the time security even figured out he was about, he'd found his way to two floors above."

"Was someone hurt?" Desmond asked unsure if the mental image of carnage agreed with him or not. In many ways, Abstergo had it coming, but he still felt obliged to dredge up some sympathy for their mostly ignorant footsoldiers.

"No," Shaun said. "It turns out, Abstergo's security staff is smarter than they look and made no attempt to stop him. Lucy got a few frantic calls, but that was the extent of it. Rebecca took him for breakfast before someone had a heart-attack."

Desmond had to laugh, too, even though it hurt as a painful remainder of his bruises.

"He doesn't believe us," Desmond explained when the hilarity faded. "Or maybe not all the way, it's hard to be sure."

"Still with the illusion?"

"Yeah, I dunno, I guess it's going to wear off or something. In the meantime, I don't know if it would help, but what was his life like? I mean, what happened in the real world?"

"He becomes the Mentor," Shaun said simply, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "He reorders the Brotherhood so we can survive to this day. He wrote a Codex, lost and recovered in the 15th Century by another of our greatest leaders."

"Can I see it?"

Shaun was silent, looking away from Desmond. "It was lost again. The original was in Rockport, Massachusetts. We've had a base there for a long time, but we couldn't evacuate quickly enough. We lost all the people there to the infection," he took a deep breathe. "And much like the rest of the world, the Assassins have seen better days."

Shaun didn't let the moment last, more in effort to keep himself together than to spare Desmond, as much was clear.

"So, back to the original topic. You haven't heard the best one, yet. There is the curious story of Vandenberg AFB. It's a Blackwatch base and we've never had direct access to the place, not recently anyway. Regardless, two months after the third outbreak kicks off, Vandenberg declares a complete shutdown. No one comes out, no one comes in. There is no communication, no nothing. Of course, by that time, all the attention was on the East Coast, where the situation was completely out of control."

"Makes sense, then?" Desmond asked, raising his eyebrows.

"It would, if Vandenberg wasn't in California."

"What happened?"

"They were all dead," Shaun said and emptied his cup. "There was some cover-up, but there were too many people and the base too large. From the reports we got our hands on, it appears to have been a mass-suicide."

Desmond frowned. "Why would they do that?"

"Why indeed," Shaun agreed. "I have a theory. I _think_ something was hidden there and someone wanted to make absolutely sure no one knew where it went."

Desmond watched Shaun in the cool light of his room. He thought of how he had too many memories of death in his head already. He _knew _how so many dead bodies would look like, regardless of how they had died or why.

"Keep it secret from whom?"

"That is the question, I should think," Shaun nodded. "It'd neatly also answer 'what' it was, wouldn't it." He collected himself off the bed. "If you have any questions I _can _answer, just drop by. Abstergo has given me my own _cubicle." _

"Where is Altaïr now?"

Shaun gave him a quick grin. "Our very own Lt. Salinger has taken it upon herself to put Altaïr through his paces, or the other way around as the situation might be. She needed some convincing he wasn't going to go easy on her due to her gender, but he set her straight on that fairly quickly."

"Was she badly hurt?"

"Not as badly as you," Shaun said pointedly.

* * *

Altaïr adjusted his footing carefully, though previous rounds had already assured him the mats in the training ring were good, not too soft to be treacherous, but soft enough to prevent serious damage. It wasn't the floor that bothered him so much as his own body. It didn't _feel _right, muscle and sinew and bone, they did as he wanted, but it wasn't his body regardless.

For one, save for the scar on his mouth, no other such mark was visible on his body. The obscenely oversized mirror in his rooms had revealed it. The bones in his left hand ached, the way it would only on the worst of all possible nights — and only then — when he felt the absence of the finger. This wound, however, was no more than a few months old.

It was not his body, not his muscles and reflexes, every fibre of his being was wrong and because of this, he welcomed the opportunity to fight, even if it was only a mockery. He had hated sparring since he was a child and accidentally broke his instructor's nose. Fights in the ring and fight anywhere else had little connection and an entirely different set of meanings. In the ring, you did not damage your opponent, you held back from what you could do to them. You did not snap their necks of dislodge their joints. Or break their nose, for that matter.

Salinger was an interesting opponent and under other circumstances he might have enjoyed taking her on. Some of her stances and moves were foreign to him, pushing him to an edge he had long since forgotten he possessed, forcing him to adapt and improvise as he went. Here was a chance to learn new tricks and how to beat them. However, his new body was far more forgiving of mistakes than his real one would have been. It became a matter of _convenience _if he failed to block a blow in time, rather than of survival or suffering. His hand and arm and shoulder could take a hard fall without any trouble and he could jump back at her before she even had a chance to realise her attack had gone through.

Before they had begun, she had said she was not a suitable instructor, that someone or something she called 'D-Code' would be a better match, but the front-lines needed the support. She had some of their ability, she said, but not enough to be a match.

Salinger didn't much like fighting him, but it was easy putting himself in her shoes. Being so obviously outmatched made the entire exercise pointless, not to mention undignified. It had made her angry and he saw it burning in her eyes, past the bruise he had left in her face. And anger in a fight was a tricky thing to calculate. It made you draw on reserves you didn't know you had while at the same time it made you blind for the more subtle shows of weaknesses your enemy indadvertedly made, especially if he felt strange in his own skin.

Salinger launched herself at him, feinting to the right when her real aim — as it had been for the previous few rounds — was his left side. She must have spotted his annoyance over his sore hand. Altaïr held his ground, just watching her advance. He had learned he could afford it, time might as well have slowed to a crawl.

A weak palm-strike for his throat, a distraction with the nothing but hope of doing damage as a bonus. She winced as he got hold of her wrist, shifting one foot back to catch their combined weight as the move made her crash into him when her body followed the twist of her arm. She tried rotating her hand in his grip and he let her, for no other reason than because he wanted to know how well she could execute the rest of her plan. It gave her just enough room to grip and turn his left arm, throw herself around to his left side, dragging his arm with her and putting a sudden, hard yank on his shoulder.

He snapped his arm free of her grip and wrenched her up and around, wrapped his left hand around her to pin her arm to her side. He wrapped his fingers around her throat from below. He could choke her from this angle, but in any real fight, the hidden blade would have gone through the vulnerable flesh under her chin and straight into her brain. She went still, breathing quickly through her nose.

Pressed against him, he felt the way her body tensed as she prepared to kick out. But before she did anything, he locked one leg around her's and snapped back so quickly she yelped in surprise as she went down. He could have followed her to the floor, pin her again and mimic another killing blow, but instead he simply let her fall and stepped back.

Though she hit the mat face-first, free of his weight, she rolled to the side immediately and regained her feet in a move that would have been smooth, had she not been as tired and worn as she was.

She glared at him and for a long minute it appeared she would try him again. With some effort and obvious reluctance she forced herself to relax and even managed a hint of a smile as she shook her head.

"This is pointless," she said.

He agreed, but said nothing.

The training room was spacious, on the same floor as his bedroom. At the centre was the training ring and other equipment — some of which looked rather odd — lined two of the walls. As the morning passed, they had acquired an audience. All the people who had been there when he first woke up watching his every move with a critical eye. Lucy, however, was notably missing.

The Templar scholar, Vidic, seemed the most skeptical, apart from Salinger herself, whose alliance he had not quite figured out yet. Altaïr did not know what the man saw and what displeased him so. He turned to the woman Wyland and said something that Altaïr could not pick up.

"Are you satisfied, Lt. Salinger?" Vidic called.

She looked past Altaïr at him and shrugged. "Fighting me and fighting Zeus are two different things," she said with a jagged echo of disdain in her voice.

"You did keep count on how dead you are, didn't you?" Rebecca asked from where she sat cross-legged on a training machine, sipping from a paper-cup.

"No," Salinger said between clenched teeth. "And it wouldn't matter."

"It's obviously not a perfect assessment," Wyland said. "We have nothing matching Zeus we could throw into the ring just for a test. This is just the first stage, once we are done here and fly out, we shall see how well he handles Walkers and Hunters. It should tell us much more."

The door at the back of the room opened and Desmond entered with Shaun. Altaïr watched him attentively, mapping the way he walked and the tiny flickers of pain on his face at every breathe he took. He could have severely hurt him the night before, when he could calculate his strength even less than today, but Desmond seemed to bear him no ill-will for it.

In fact, it was too easy to confide in Desmond, to take his pointers from him, just because there was no hint of malice from him. The others, even the other Assassins, were strangers to him, but Desmond was something else, something entirely too close for comfort. He had all the appearances of a phantom created by the cursed Piece of Eden to fight and confound him. A last trick played on his mind, subtlety instead of open aggression.

And yet, this place had not the feel of magic to it. It was strange and confusing, but its texture was wholly real and solid, completely different from anything he had encountered veiled in his master's deceitful powers. In many ways, he would have preferred magic. Sorcery, at least, he knew how to distrust. It dispersed under his blade and beat uselessly against the boundaries of his mind. No manipulation was whittling away at the back of his thoughts that he could discern.

He had hidden behind pretence the night before, shielded himself from an admission he didn't like to make. If it was a dream of any kind, or even a nightmare, he could still set his own rules, but if this was _real_, he did not know what to do.

Salinger shook her head and turned to climb through the flexible ropes that framed the ring.

"Oh come on, I wanted to see it," Desmond said with a pout.

Salinger studied him. "You've got firsthand experience, that's better than watching."

"I prefer to appreciate from afar," Desmond said with a grin. "Like watching a lion feed on a lamb."

Salinger snorted and walked to the side where she had left her bottle earlier.

Desmond's grin faded when he turned his gaze to study Altaïr thoughtfully. The look was different from what the others gave him, less wary and less awed, less of _everything_. The only thing Altaïr could clearly identify was pity and he doubted Desmond was even aware of it, much less he would pity him in the first place.

With Salinger gone, Altaïr supposed the training session was done for the time being. He climbed from the ring and strode to face Desmond, greeting Shaun with a quick nod.

Desmond still studied him and eventually he said, _"How do you feel?" _

Altaïr took his time contemplating the question. Desmond's expression made it clear he knew how odd it was to ask such a thing and expect a suitable answer.

"We can speak English," Altaïr said, disregarding the question and Desmond had enough sense to take it as it was.

From her place by the ring, Wyland closed her machine and came over. She looked from Altaïr to Desmond and back, debating who she should address. Wyland was harder to read than the others, save Salinger. Wyland did not seem an enemy, she was certainly no Templar, but she was not cast as an ally, either.

"Altaïr?" she said as if his name felt strange on her tongue. "I would like to do a full physical exam."

Altaïr regarded her, "There is nothing wrong."

The answer seemed to displease her, "There is nothing wrong _now, _but I'd like to keep you monitored. There are certain… changes we should not leave out of our sight." She looked at Salinger and Vidic briefly, looking for confirmation. "At least for the time being."

He wanted to know about these changes, but he knew there was no good answer to be had. He had already learned how these people found it difficult to explain their world to him, a problem shared by all of them, though Desmond was the only one who admitted it. Explaining one thing invariably required them to explain some prerequisite, which in turn could only be understood if you knew what came before _that. _

"No," Altaïr said. "There is nothing wrong. If I require help, I will let you know."

He glanced at Desmond, then passed his attention over the others. He was not entirely certain who was the leader here, but Vidic certainly thought it was him.

"You have me here for a single purpose," Altaïr added before Wyland or someone else could object. "I understand you are short for time, so if you show me my target, I will tell you if I can kill him. You do not need to make another test to have an answer to that."

Silence choked the air, but Altaïr was fairly sure they would not force the issue. If he was confused by this place, whether real or not, the people around him were at least as puzzled about him. It was a strange balance of uncertainty, leaving all of them without enough solid facts to do more than fumble in the dark.

"Ah, the infamous Assassin bloodlust rears its head," Vidic remarked with habitual contempt. "It's almost refreshing to witness it in its original form, isn't it Mr. Miles?"

Desmond merely shrugged. "Don't ask me, Doc. I quit, remember?"

"And we are all so glad you didn't make it far," Vidic said. He looked at Wyland questioningly.

"Well," she said, obviously unhappy. "DX 1120 isn't known to have undesirable side-effects, so he _should_ be fine, but with his unique genetic blueprint… I have no idea. All variants of the virus are potentially extremely mutable. I want to take a blood sample and keep taking one twice a day to monitor it." She studied Altaïr. "But we can postpone the rest."

She turned to go, "Come with me, please."

Altaïr made to follow, but stopped again before he passed by Desmond and Shaun. In Arabic, he said, _"I need to speak with the Mentor." _

Shaun didn't seem to understand him, but Desmond nodded quickly.

* * *

Desmond sat in a corner of the conference room, huddled in its shadows, suffering each breathe and caught between watching the large screen on the wall and watching Altaïr as he watched the screen. He wasn't entirely sure what he expected to see in Altaïr's face, whether through some magic he could suddenly decipher him when Altaïr didn't want to be read.

Desmond had seen some of the Zeus footage before, when flipping through the files Lucy had given him. This was different, this had been carefully selected and put together to show as much of his abilities as possible and it made for a gruesome and disjointed mosaic of barely quantifiable carnage, a potential for sheer wanton destruction that boggled the mind.

Strangely enough, what bothered Desmond was less Zeus' capabilities, which were nothing new, but his willingness to exploit them. Desmond saw no hesitation at all in him, a figure just barely still human-shaped, as it dropped into a circle of tanks with a vicious blade instead of an arm and the fast flare of chitinous armour on his other whenever a rocket came hissing in direction. A few times, he didn't even seem to waste time on the shield, but simply jumped out of the way, or even took the hit head on and it did nothing but shove him around a little. There was no visible _fear _in the face of what should have been insurmountable odds, no doubt and no mistakes either. Zeus took out the tanks, far faster than the soldiers and heedless of their bullets and rockets.

Blood was smeared on the concrete, body parts from gutted and dismembered soldiers hung on the carcasses of tanks, a madman's garlands.

Smoke filled the image and something shook the camera and then a streak of blood cut across the lens, splitting the picture in half. For a moment, Zeus stood right there, motionless in inhuman stillness. Something red and black writhed on his body, closing some tiny gap left by a massive projectile. Zeus moved and the image distorted and was gone.

It got worse after that. More carnage, blood and guts and bile, interspersed with white, splintering bone and Desmond stopped trying to guess just how many people Zeus had killed in this way, neither could he even begin to figure out which of the many ways Zeus murdered his victims was the worst.

As the videos continued, however, Desmond was fairly sure nothing was worse than watching Zeus as he absorbed people into him, their bodies still struggling in jerks and twitches as they melted away under the squriming mess of Blacklight's raw biomass.

"Thank goodness I didn't have breakfast," Desmond muttered under his breathe. It was too dark in the room to see the others clearly enough to tell how affected they were. Did Wyland look a little pale? Salinger more stiff than normal? Was that Vidic's jaw clenching and unclenching under his beard?

Altaïr was silently attentive, nothing more, nothing less. A few months in his memories had done nothing to harden Desmond in the way Altaïr apparently was.

"It regenerates at a rapid rate," Salinger explained. "We've sometimes managed to inflict enough damage in a short time to cause Zeus to retreat, but we have never been able to press the attack all the way."

"What was his involvement in the nuke during the first outbreak?" Shaun asked.

Salinger gave him a hard look. "There was no involvement."

"Because it looks like he might have been caught in the blast and that's why it takes him two years until he shows up again."

"There was no involvement," Salinger said again. Shaun clearly didn't believe her and by the looks on their faces, neither did any of the others.

"Have it your way, then," Shaun said. "But it's still something to keep in mind when we are talking about regeneration and, as you say, _it _succumbing to an attack."

Salinger turned away from them pointedly, not inviting any further inquiry.

It _was _something to think about, Desmond agreed. If somehow Zeus could regenerate from the amount of damage a nuke blast would cause, it was hard to imagine what _would. _Desmond made no comment on it, however, simply because he couldn't see the point. Arguing would, quite clearly, not gain them anything. Blackwatch, Gentek, Abstergo, they all didn't seem to really understand this working together thing they had going, each still jealously guarding their own secrets while everything else went down in chaos. Desmond could negotiate with Altair to make them work together, but he could not make these dogs learn the new trick of trust. Perhaps Zeus would make them eventually, but Desmond doubted he would live long enough to see it.

"This is what we have on Zeus' agility," Salinger announced, lifting her voice as the images changed. "It's running speed is estimated upwards of 50 mph, even when carrying an armour."

"Up the side of a skyscraper, too," Desmond remarked with mocking cheerfulness. "How dexterous."

Salinger ignored him and anyway, the footage was telling the story in sufficiently frightening clarity.

"Does he have _any _limits at all?" Desmond asked while on screen, Zeus used a thick tentacle to pluck a helicopter from the sky. The video was shot from another chopper and had no sound, but Desmond thought he still heard the screaming of the pilots.

"_It _has limits," Salinger asserted, but didn't follow up with examples and Desmond considered his point made.

"His movement is wrong," Altaïr said quietly.

"Which part?" Desmond asked. "The part where gravity is his bitch? Or that part where he couldn't be _bothered_ to move out of the way of a rocket?"

"He is slow."

"That…" Salinger said and stuttered to an uncertain pause, "…is the first time I heard Zeus described as slow."

Altaïr looked at her, as if considering what to tell her and what to keep to himself. "Not slow in general. But slower than he should be. He is not a big man, smaller than me, yes? With what you have shown me, he should be much faster than this."

"You aren't complaining, are you?" Rebecca asked with clear surprise. "Because an edge is good, I should think."

"If I know why," Altaïr nodded.

"It could be its mass-weight relation," Wyland offered. "Zeus has a much higher density than a human being of the same proportions. It's part of the reason why it's so resistant to damage. It would come down to simple physics. Strength or not, inertia would apply to him in the same way it does to everyone else, I suppose."

"I am also heavier than I should be," Altaïr added. "Slower." He tilted his head at Wyland. "Is it one of your changes?"

It looked like Wyland was going to try to avoid the question entirely, her gaze skittered away and fixed on Salinger, then Desmond as if she hoped he would come to her rescue for some reason.

"It's somewhat similar to what has happened to Mercer's body originally. You were affected by a different strain of the same virus."

Altaïr arched a questioning brow. "Virus? It is what causes the plague?"

"Eh, yes, that. But what you have, it is a different kind of, well, plague. It doesn't harm you, but it makes your body stronger."

"But you won't be shooting tentacles from your back any time soon," Desmond said and Rebecca added quietly, "We hope. Or do we?"

Desmond shook his head helplessly, "Beats me."

"I see," Altaïr said and it might mean many things.

When he said nothing more, Desmond finally leaned forward and said, "So, what do you think?"

Altaïr met his gaze and Desmond froze in his seats with how hard and cold his eyes had become to the backdrop of inhuman slaughter. Altaïr seemed entirely unfazed by the prospect of going up against what they had just seen. If anything, Altaïr seemed sickly fascinated by it and it shocked Desmond, deep to the bone even if he didn't know what to make of it at all.

"I will need good weapons," Altaïr said.

* * *

_End of Chapter 5_

* * *

**Reference(s):**

_"Every human perfection is linked to an error which it threatens to turn into."_ — Arthur Schopenhauer

I could have sworn _"you deal with the devil, these are the terms"_ is from somewhere, but I can't seem to find it. Maybe I'm misremembering the quote in a way that makes google unable to find it?


	6. War Philosophies

**About Specialist Li: **If, at any point, you think she's a Mary Sue and you want to ragequit, please either read to the end of her scene or give her a last chance by reading the _'Hint on Li'_ at the end of the fic. Thank you.

* * *

**6. War Philosophies**

* * *

In the grimy red glow of a table-lamp covered by flecked cloth, Altaïr looked calm and collected and demonic. Seated on the edge of a prostitute's unmade bed, he held the laptop at arm's length in front of him, never trying to hide his weariness at having to deal with the computer at all. He distrusted the machines, but it was distrust slowly tipping into hatred. Lucy could easily picture it, how he would keep squeezing the laptop between his fingers until the aluminium bent and cracked for him.

Music was coming through the walls from neighbouring flats. Music and raised voices and moans of other prostitutes and their clients, easily distinguishable by their pitch and their dishonesty. The pattering of water came from the bathroom, where Mirela had turned on the shower to give them privacy for their conversation.

They had set up several similar locations around the city to contact William Miles or other cells. Saver, even with their new alliance, if Abstergo had no access to this information. Lucy was convinced Abstergo wouldn't try anything, not while the truce lasted and while their cooperation constituted a chance to help end the outbreak, but the future, as ever, was uncertain.

Now, standing by the window, Lucy saw only the back of the laptop, watched its white light as it fought for dominance with the red on Altaïr's face. The illumination obscured rather than revealed his thoughts, painting him in too harsh contrast, making his eyes too hard and the cast of his mouth too sharp as he spoke.

"When I said I wanted to speak with you, I meant face to face," Altaïr said, both respectful and unyielding. The memory of Al Mualim's death must be fresh on his mind, despite all that had happened in the days since. Another Mentor would need to prove himself first.

"I know," William said with wry humour. "But I'm not even in the same country as you and travel is difficult. I'm doing my part elsewhere. What do you need?"

Listening, watching, Lucy remembered William's face from their previous conversations, when each time she had had to tell him that Desmond had refused to come. She had not argued with Desmond on both counts, but she had wanted to. She understood Desmond's lingering anger, but she had seen the pain in William's face, too. Once they flew out to the US, nothing was assured, no one was safe. And William didn't want to lose his son a final time without trying to make things right between them.

"Why are you working with the Templars?" Altaïr asked. His voice was low, rough and accented.

"It's certainly not what I'd have wanted," William said. "But we are not as strong as we used to be and we are scattered. We've been able to hold a more or less steady balance. We weren't winning, but we weren't losing either. And then the outbreaks happened. The first two were bad enough, but they ended quickly at least. But this? This needs to be stopped by any means. I knew we didn't have the money or the weapons, least of all, the people to fight this alone. But _no one does. _Not alone. If we try, we'll be picked off one by one and all that's left in the end won't be human. You know how it goes, don't you? The enemy of my enemy is my friend."

"I've seen the man you call Zeus on your 'computers'."

"He's not a man," William said gravely. "He was, once, but that's long gone. Don't ever think there is anything human left. Don't…" But Altaïr interrupted him, something in his gaze that Lucy had missed, but William had not.

Altaïr said, "I have not seen his handiwork."

"You will soon enough," William promised darkly. "And I'm pretty sure you'll wish you hadn't. I know I do. I know it's difficult right now, but once you've seen, _truly seen, _I'm sure my decision will make sense to you. We want to preserve humanity, protect it's soul, but today, we con't do it alone. That's ironic, of course. Because in this, at least, the Templars share our goal, even if they're misguided."

Altaïr put his face to the side a little, and the shadows slipped over the skin of his face like a caress and into darkness.

"What if I see your horrors and they fail to convince me?"

Lucy let out the breath she had been holding, forced herself to relax. She found she had stepped forward and stopped, unsure of what she should do next. Reach for the laptop? For Altaïr? Reach for some clever answer in her mind to lent and to William?

But Altaïr had not been impressed by anything they had shown him so far, even Zeus didn't seem to unsettle him the way it should. He, who had walked battlefields all his life, it would take more than bloodshed and casual brutality to move him when he didn't want to be moved. And he had just slain a Mentor for betraying the Creed and for using him to do it. History had justified him, in the centuries since, even if Altaïr could not know it. But what would they do if he felt justified in doing the same again?

"We'll talk again," William answered with a calm Lucy knew she wouldn't have had. He continued, "I'm not sure what you want to hear. It's not fair we brought you here the way we did. It's not fair to pitch you into a hopeless fight. It's not _ever _fair. That's the world. We live in it. We make our choices in it and hope they are the right ones. That's all I can offer you. I won't order you to fight for us, or the Templars and our alliance."

Altaïr studied William's face. The image quality wasn't all it could be, their security measures alone meant the connection wasn't as steady as it could have been.

"You will not command me?" Altaïr asked and the surprise was thin and unexpected in his voice and face.

"Never," William said sincerely without any hesitation at all. "We are asking for your help. And your forgiveness. But you have to decide if you'll give both. You belong only to yourself, even if you are an Assassin and I'm the Mentor. If we bowed to titles, we wouldn't be who we are. And it's important to remember that, especially now."

Altaïr considered. Him and his words, weighted them against all the lies Al Mualim had told him through the years. For all his inscrutability, this, at least, was quite clear.

"We will need to speak in the future," Altaïr said. "In person."

"It'd be an honour," William said. "You have no idea how much. And it'll be in better days, too. Can you hand me back to Lucy?"

Altaïr nodded and Lucy finally crossed the room back to him, where he held out the laptop cautiously, unable to hide his relief at being rid of the thing.

"William?" she said.

"I know Desmond is still angry," William said. "And I don't want to pressure him. Just… keep him safe, will you?"

"I will," Lucy said and something tightened around her heart to see him force an encouraging smile, bright enough to make her believe — if only while the smile lasted — everything would work out in the end. William smiled and cut the connection, leaving the void of a black square on the screen behind, sucking her in.

The blankets whispered as Altaïr got up and walked to the window, drawing her gaze away from the screen and with him. He pushed the curtain aside and peered out into the semi-darkness outside, clasping his hands behind his back.

Desmond had mentioned he suspected something was wrong with Altaïr's left hand, but he held it still now, perfectly relaxed. The finger had been amputated fairly early during the accelerated growth process of the body, before the introduction of DX-1120 to prevent complications with the virus' regenerative abilities. It wouldn't have been able to regrow an entire limb, but tissue could still have grown unpredictably. It would still be a wound and his memories said it shouldn't be there.

As she watched him, she thought she was beginning to understand Altaïr's silence and that it both marked and masked his incomprehension. She had no doubt he could function in any fight they dropped him into, the concept of modern weaponry would reveal itself to him easily, if the Codex his real self had written was any indiction. Altaïr understood the nature of war. As a human being, however, he was far more than just his skills at taking life and he would have to take enormous pressure on that count, ripped from his own reality as he had been.

He turned away from the window in a motion so fluid it encompassed all the perfection that had made him the stuff of legend centuries ago. And worse — or better — was how he didn't even seem to be aware he was doing it.

If he caught her staring at him he gave no indication other than faint surprise fluttering across his face, perhaps only because he had expected her to have already put the laptop away and was ready to go.

Lucy shook herself from her thoughts, snapped the laptop closed and got up, unplugging it and coiling the cables quickly around her hand before she stuffed everything back into the lowest drawer of the nightstand.

On the way out, Lucy knocked on the bathroom door until the shower was turned off. "I've left the money by the bed," Lucy called through the door. "Thank you, and take care."

"You too, _cara," _the prostitute answered and opened the door just in time to gave them both a quick wave before they were back out in the hallway, nearly colliding with a man who just came up the stair.

He seemed mildly surprised to see what would seem to be a couple to him, but merely shouldered his way past them and into the flat, where he was greeted with rapid-fire Italian that Lucy failed to understand. The door fell closed and the non-silence of the stairwell surrounded them in murky twilight.

"This is a brothel," Altaïr observed, glancing upward in the six-story apartment building.

"Not all of it," Lucy said quickly. "But it's safer this way. We find our allies where they are."

"From all walks of life," Altaïr nodded. "It is a good idea."

Lucy smiled, not quite sure why she felt vindicated by his approval.

* * *

The command centre of Queenside FOB was only sparsely populated by the nightshift. Two comm officers on duty behind their respective workstations, and a handful of privates, hurrying back and forth.

Blackwatch Lt. General Benham stood at the back of the room, leaning over the large map table, shifting through papers and tablets and laptops. They did have a lot more nifty tech than this, a large digital map of the area, for one thing, but it drew badly on their already rickety power grid and was only fired up during operations in the Red Zone and current orders from Kingside Command were to stick behind the wall in Queenside and not attract attention and topple their current, favourable situation.

Benham was, for many reasons, in a fortunate position, as much as such terms could be applied.

Queenside was located just south of what used to be DC. Early on in, to stop the first great surge of infected, the airforce had laid a bomb curtain, twenty miles north and south from where Queenside now stood. The bombardment had cleared the area, given the military enough breathing room to start building not just bases, but a great wall to keep the infection locked up between their guns and the Atlantic. For Blackwatch, it was just a new manifestation of the red line and their goal, first and foremost and at the expense of everything, was to make sure nothing came across it.

To the regular troops, to the new militia and to the civilians amassing behind Queenside in survivor's and quarantine camps, it was the Red Border, with life on one side and utter Armageddon on the other.

Queenside was fortunate also because pressure on the parts of the Red Border it protected seemed noticeably less than in other places, especially Kingside Command in the north, Rooks' superbase. It was because of this that other bases transferred their own survivors to Queenside, why injured soldiers got to recuperate here rather than in their own stations. The camps behind the base were also larger, sprawling far into the ruined countryside and swelling every day.

Some of the soldiers had been making bets on how long it would take until the steady trickle of survivors came to a halt, but while there were fewer than before, they hadn't stopped coming, yet. The camps were a mess, of course. Too many people, often traumatised and possessing nothing but the clothes on their back, if that. Hygiene was a problem, so was food, so was electricity and conditions in the camps were getting worse every day. Even if the Red Border held — and held everywhere, not just here — a better long-term solution needed to be found for all these people.

The civilians still believed in some kind of functional government giving orders from some other secured outpost, but the simple fact was, Benham didn't even know who was still alive, if somewhere else some senator or secretary of fuckwhatever thought their elections still meant anything. Blackwatch was in command of the country now. Or the parts of the country that didn't already belong to Blacklight anyway.

It helped to keep the peace within the camps to let people _believe _there was a working system, however. Democracy and all its frills. Benham found it hard to recall when exactly he had stopped thinking of these ideas as ridiculous and started thinking of them as downright dangerous.

The quiet scrape of metal on concrete echoed through the nearly empty room, an oddly disturbing sound in the dead of night. Benham glanced up, a frown beginning to darken his expression as he watched Specialist Li wander through the room with abrasive, aggressively sensual insolence.

Li and a unit of D-Codes had had arrived three months earlier, just after Detrick had been overrun and Kingside became their primary base. She had come highly recommended at the time, capable of moving fast and hitting hard where the need was greatest. Part of a new contingent of D-Codes deployed all along the Red Border.

Benham hadn't much cared for her the instant he met her, but it really didn't make much of a difference. He had been fairly sure she was tough enough to _last, _however. Put up more of a fight, perhaps. She _was _Blackwatch, after all. And then, on her first mission into the Red Zone, she had got her entire unit killed. She had been counted MIA for a week before she had stumbled back through the fortified gate and than passed out just beyond the threshold. Although badly battered, she had, miraculously, avoided any lasting damage. Two days later, she had been back on her feet, seemingly not the worse for wear and with all her arrogant attitude firmly in place.

Since then, and with Rooks' reluctant sanction, she worked alone. She came and went as she pleased in such erratic pattern that everyone had stopped wondering about it, though Benham still heard the occasional complaint about her never filing a report. The thing Benham also kept hearing every so often was that she was a 'really nice piece of ass'. Benham made it a special point to cut off these lines of thoughts whenever he caught wind of it. Partially because he knew the value of discipline in difficult circumstances, but mostly for his own peace of mind. He didn't even want to think about what would happen if someone thought he could force himself on Li.

Benham straightened away from the table and watched Li as she approached him. You would think she was changed, you would think you could spot the differences and flaws and _glaring mistakes _in her face. But it was all tanned skin and almond eyes and perpetual, full-lipped smirk that showed too many teeth.

Benham picked up the file folder he had prepared earlier and walked around the table to meet her halfway. With no one observing them, she didn't bother with even the sloppy salute she had for him normally. Benham tensed, squaring his shoulders as she came at least an inch too close.

"You have something for me," Li said, her voice a sirupy drawl.

"Yes, but it's not what you wanted," Benham replied. "Someone is going to fly in from Europe in three days."

Li arched a brow. "And?"

"It's very short notice," Benham pointed out. "And Kingside hasn't been very talkative on what it's about, either. Some new cooperation with a European company called Abstergo. They have their fingers in practically everything, but never got much of a foothold in the US. They do have a few subsidiaries, but nothing like they do overseas. They have an expansive genetic research branch, however, and I guess that's what this is about."

"Another cure?" Li asked, making it sound like a dirty word.

"Not likely," Benham said. "It reads more like they revived Phase Two of Orion, or another similar programme. Gentek is crippled for resources, of course, but this Abstergo seems to have access to unusual DNA. Kingside also wants to assign Li, that is, _you_, as an instructor. They need a D-Code and there are no others here."

Trying to read in Li's face was pointless, there was nothing that would match up, after all. He still watched her, too intently not to give anything away, but he knew already that there was no such thing as privacy of thought between them.

"Hm," Li made. Abruptly, she reached out and put a hand on his cheek. Benham flinched inwardly, but didn't move.

"You worry?" she observed. "Heartwarming."

Benham opened his mouth, unsure of what he would have said. Though her touch felt almost normal, her hand burned on his skin, barely bearable. Before he could say anything, Li patted his cheek and pulled the folder from his loosening grip with her other hand. She strode past him, flipping open the folder, she leaned against the table as she began to leaf through its contents.

"I'm more worried about the viral detectors," Benham said, clenching his jaw as he felt the skin in his neck crawl, still sensing Li's proximity. Using the moment, he composed himself, for his own comfort more than anything else, before he turned around to watch Li's profile as she read.

Without looking up, she said, "What about them? You made all the adjustments, didn't you? There shouldn't be any problem with their new settings. We tested them thoroughly."

"Yes," Benham said slowly. "But we will have the base full of new scientists, other Blackwatch personnel and their super soldier. Some of them are bound to snoop around."

"And I trust you to keep order in your base," Li said, still without looking up and exposing him to her piercing gaze.

"It's still a calculation with too many unknowns for my liking," Benham insisted. "I could do a rollback to a previous version until they are gone again, but if you have to be present it'd become complicated."

Li didn't answer, instead she turned over several pages before she said, "It's not a revival of Orion. It doesn't look like they used much more than the same basic principle. Apply DX-1120 to achieve substantial enhancement of the physical abilities of the subjects. Or one subject."

Benham's frown deepened, "Is this like D-Code?" He hesitated, debating whether he should say it or not. "Or is it like Heller?"

Li finally lowered the folder and there was the flaw Benham had been looking for, the mistake in the pattern. These eyes were too sharp and too cold, frosted even if they were merely a soft brown colour today. It was a revelation, but only for him, who knew the truth and had sold his soul to it.

Again, she gave no answer to his question, just watched him until he would never dare to repeat it. Instead, she said, "Actually, do make a rollback on the detectors, but be ready to apply our update on short notice."

Benham nodded and swallowed dryly, his cheek still burned, though it could be only his imagination. "It'll be done, but, why?"

Li shrugged and smiled a little, white teeth and red lips, "They are testing their new prototype and they picked my back garden to do it in. I'd say, let them. It's bound to be educational for everyone involved. You just do your job and leave the rest to me."

"Will you be in camp, then?" Benham asked.

Li discarded the folder on the table, carelessly dropping it so it dislodged a few other files from the piles. She pulled herself from the table, dislodging a few other files from their pile as she did so. She tucked her hands in her pockets and stood for a moment in motionless silence. Benham thought he was going to get an answer, but Li simply sauntered past him.

"I…" Benham said to her retreating back. "Will you be here?"

Li lifted an arm and a casual wave of her black-gloved hand made him fall silent.

* * *

"There are not a whole lot of things that can really damage Zeus in its current state," Wyland said as she spearheaded them into the armoury like a group of schoolchildren on an excursion.

Desmond amused himself with the metaphor, hands tucked away in his pockets and pretending not to be interested. What he recalled of his training back on the Farm would fit on a napkin of every bar he had ever worked in. Which was to say, not the hell much. And in staggering contradiction, he remembered Altaïr. Remembered learning to fight, too, in his shoes, but the memories were distant and slippery, arriving in confusing bursts and snaps that didn't help in the least.

Salinger had given up sparring with Altaïr entirely. She had been able to hold her own, more or less, in the first few rounds, but as Altaïr's familiarity with his altered body grew, sparring had become useless. She still showed signs of it, however, bruised and battered and in a rather foul mood.

Desmond spotted the hidden blade and its gauntlet first of all the weapons arrayed on a metal table along one wall. He saw the weapon and his heart bled with how much he had missed it, its weight on his arm, the reassuring hiss as the blade came free, the certainty of life as it was severed.

A longer look revealed _two _gauntlets, both of similar, but not identical designs.

Altaïr stepped to Wyland's side, but paid her no heed, reaching for the gauntlets instead. After a moment, Lucy joined him.

"The design was changed," she explained. "It can now be worn and used without the sacrifice of a finger."

Altaïr put one of the gauntlets away to inspect the other closer, fingertips tracing the delicate mechanism. Even at the distance, Desmond could see it wasn't an old weapon. This was newly made from some futuristic metal that probably didn't even have a public name yet. Some high-tech alloy capable of piercing Zeus' chitinous armoured skin.

"Encounters have shown Zeus is susceptible to electric shock," Wyland said. "The power the hidden blades are able to produce won't be enough to permanently immobilise it. The outer armour of the gauntlets serve as batteries and protection. They can take a hard hit and even direct gunfire, if it's not sustained longer than a few minutes. They can be solar-charged. At full charge, both gauntlets will supply a steady current for half an hour. They are empty now, so there is no risk."

Altaïr arched his brows in her general direction.

"It's like a miniature lighting," Desmond said. "Zeus' body should lock up if you touch him with it."

"Half an hour of lightning?" Altaïr asked.

"And the sun will refill it, too," Desmond added. Altaïr turned the gauntlet in his hand again, then turned his gaze to the second.

"Coordinating two blades will take some time," he said.

Desmond gave him a skeptical look. His own mind was already mapping the required movements, the difference in balance, the additional angles of attack and defence the second blade offered. And if this was _Desmond_'s reaction, then 'some time' would probably clock in at barely an hour for Altaïr. Desmond felt a short spike of jealousy and then even hunger, wanting these blades for himself to test on solid flesh.

"During the first outbreak, we developed something called 'bloodtox'," Wyland said. "It was fairly effective on the first few applications, but all Infected, Zeus included, develop resistances quickly. Bloodtox is a last resort against Infected, but barely any use anymore against Zeus itself. It also helps an uninfected organism to stave off infection for a short while, but again, we run into a resistance problem during prolonged application."

She walked further along the table. "We had a cure," she said, avoiding their looks. "But it's lost. Our best research since then, as well as our best guess, can be loaded into this."

She picked up what looked to Desmond like the unfortunate bastard offspring of a shotgun and a crossbow, with a bit of handgun mixed in somewhere. She handed the thing to Altaïr. He weighted it in his hand and then wrapped the fingers of his right hand around the grip, tracing the trigger.

He took a step away from the table and the people and took aim experimentally with his arm outstretched.

"We are calling it 'diluculum'," Wyland explained. "It's an anti-viral drug we only recently developed. It causes apoptosis in cells infected by a variety of viruses, including Blacklight. Part of the why bloodtox has proved easy to overcome seems to be because Blacklight is an intelligent virus, unlike anything we have ever seen. Whether it is its natural state or was added when Blacklight fused with a human intellect, we don't know. Bloodtox causes necrosis, traumatic death of a cell and Blacklight immediately compensates for it. Apoptosis on the hand is a natural cell death."

"So Blacklight won't be able to see it as a threat?" Lucy asked.

"Yes, that's what we hope. Unfortunately, the _other _reason why Blacklight is so difficult to kill is because it's capable to evolve rapidly. Every exposure that fails to kill it completely allows the virus to adapt. It's less of a problem with the Infected hordes, where it's bad enough. Zeus, well…" she left it to hang in the air between them. Some things were too obvious to say aloud.

"So either it kills him outright, or it makes him stronger," Desmond translated, more for his benefit than Altaïr's who seemed to not particularly care. He had snapped both gauntlets on while Wyland talked and their metallic hiss set Desmond's teeth on edge.

"The crossbow is too light," Altaïr said as he returned and set the weapon back down on the table. "It is difficult to aim."

"The projectiles will weight it down quite a bit," Wyland said. She reached past him and picked up a vicious looking bolt. It was the length of her hand, with a silvery body and a dull black tip. "It'll explode once it impacts so diluculum spreads to as much tissue as possible."

She handed him the projectile.

He held it in his hand for a moment, than picked up the crossbow again, studying it. Salinger stepped forward, no doubt to demonstrate how to use it, but before she could get within reach, Altaïr had already figured it out.

Desmond had to give it to the designers, though, they had clearly invested some thought in these weapons. Obviously high-tech to Desmond's eyes, they were still mostly self-explanatory for someone of Altaïr's background. Indeed, they matched maybe a little too well to come from Abstergo or even Blackwatch. These were weapons made for Assassins, elegant and subtle means of murder, just like the hidden blade had always been.

As if reading his mind, Lucy appeared by his side and said, "What? Did you think your DNA was the only thing the Assassins contributed to this little endeavour?"

"These our your… I mean, our inventions?" Desmond asked.

She shrugged nonchalantly. "The upside of being a warrior in an ancient cold war is the arms race has had a chance to grow wildly out of proportion."

"I can see that," Desmond said. He gave her a grin, but wasn't sure whether the moment of good mood was appropriate. "Do I get a set of this stuff, too?"

He had expected her to laugh with him at the absurdity of the idea. He had none of Altaïr's skills, just a few random shards, cropping up where and when he least needed them. He had no idea how to predict Altaïr's chances, but he sure as hell knew what his would be like.

Lucy's face had grown serious and his gaze lingered on his face with an expression he couldn't name.

"We could," she said then. "Your DNA would take the augmentation as well as Altaïr's. We could use the bleeding effect to help your training, but we'd have to be careful with that. I haven't put the idea forward, because this was easier and…"

She stopped herself with a brief flare of shock passing her eyes. "Because we tried," she finally finished. "We tried to do it this way and it didn't work."

Desmond took a long minute, saying nothing, but he felt his thoughts racing. He didn't even notice that the others had wandered further down the hall where a mannequin was wearing Altaïr's future armour.

"The one who'd painted my room," Desmond said. "It drove him mad."

"It drove him mad. I didn't stop it and I won't let it happen to you."

Desmond smiled wryly. "You promised my father, didn't you?"

"You really should speak with him."

"Shit's happened, okay?" Desmond said, pushing his hands deeper into his pockets and hunching his shoulders, feeling boyish and petulant. "I'm not the son he wanted and he's certainly not the father I wanted. The order was always more important and I get it now, right? It matters what he does. Can't leave the Templars to do their thing, there needs to be a balance. But the other things, that's still there. I wouldn't know the first thing to say to him."

"And if we die?" she asked. "If this is the last chance? Desmond, it really might be."

She looked down the room, at Altaïr with Wyland and Salinger, testing other weapons and listening to explanations he lacked the background knowledge to fully understand. Desmond didn't even need any superhuman perception to follow the line of her thoughts. Altaïr's confidence notwithstanding, their chances weren't good in the least. Coming back from this would require more than mere skill, more even than luck, and Desmond didn't believe in destiny.

"And there's nothing to say," Desmond insisted. He could tell she wanted to argue, but he certainly wasn't in the mood, so he just walked away, glad when he turned his back to her and she couldn't see his face anymore and the invitation to argue him out of his stance. Perhaps it was what he wanted, but mostly, he just didn't know.

"I want to see the rest of the toys," Desmond said by way of explanation, with entirely fake levity, though his interest was real.

Assassin weapon-smiths, past and present, would be proud of this arsenal and no way in hell could it have come about just to fight Blacklight and its outbreak. The Assassins _were _in the middle of a war and here were their tools. It was strange to see these things with his own knowledge, with having grown up in modernity and at the same time, recognise the swords and daggers of old, their worth upheld by the very nature of the enemy. Infected could not be scared off and were resilient to wounds. Bullets could tear them up, but only a blade would skewer them.

Desmond felt a strange pang of recognition when Altaïr swung a black-bladed tomahawk and Desmond went chasing the memory in his mind, hoping to find some connection.

Altaïr walked a little further, getting some distance between himself and the others, who regarded him with a hint of puzzlement. Desmond suspected he knew what was about to happen and thought he could already see it in his mind's eye.

In reality, different and similar to Desmond't imagination, Altaïr tossed the tomahawk in the air, once, to watch it spin. He caught it in midair, turned and twisted and threw in an almost straight line for the mannequin. The blade of the tomahawk cut through the exposed neck of the mannequin so smoothly it might as well not have been there, but the collar at its back diverted its direction upward, though barely slowed it down. The tomahawk buried itself completely into the wall with only the end of the handle sticking out, vibrating with excess force.

* * *

_End of Chapter 6_

* * *

**Reference**:

Diluculum — latin "dawn, daybreak" (because Greylight was just silly); it's inspired by an experimental anti-viral drug called DRACO

* * *

**Author's Note:** I'm becoming fond of the idea to coin-flip the gender for all my ocs, but it leads to some strange constellations. I didn't want Li to be female, but I decided not to reroll until I liked the result and instead tried to make it work. I had originally planned to keep her true identity hidden for much longer, but that'd probably have overstrained people's patience with non-canon women.

The connection between lightning and electricity is historically a bit iffy, but workable.

* * *

**Hint on Li:** _shapeshifter_


	7. The Man in White

**7. The Man in White**

* * *

Desmond slept badly and dreamt worse to the constant droning of the plane, its occasional shiver and the knowledge of almost certain doom awaiting them when they landed. He was flailing about in disjointed snatches of memories, some familiar — Altaïr, focused and calm even in his dreams — but others were foreign to me. He dreamt of a velvet-dark cape weighing down his shoulder, a mask on his face and blood on his hands. He dreamt of an endless forest spreading out below and before him. He dreamt of the sea, azure water under a cerulean sky.

And slowly struggling back towards wakefulness, he remembered the other weapons Altaïr had gone through. Different hidden blades in a thousand new varieties, smaller crossbows to fight normal infected, guns and knives and other tools of death.

Altaïr had spent an evening trying to thrash his armour by having Salinger beat on him. It had been strange to watch him barely move to evade and not fight back other than to block a thrust with his arm. And although it was hanging off him in patches by the end of the day, the armour was an amazing piece of modern technology. And something which, to Desmond, who had never wanted to be an assassin, looked needlessly stylish.

Abstergo and Assassin scientists had fashioned a long white coat out of what Salinger had described as 'self-healing graphene nanotubes', whatever that meant. At Altaïr's stiff silence, Desmond had set "really tough", but it must have been too simplified for Altaïr's taste, who had given him a skeptical look. The coat's outer layer also conducted electricity, while the inner layers insulated against it. Shirt and pants were made of synthetic spidersilk, capable of stopping bullets at the thickness of a T-shirt, though this time woven into something thicker and closer to leather than soft fabric.

Everything looked good and promising, but the speed at which Altaïr wrecked it painted a far different picture. True, he had used the opportunity to try his new weapons, learn their effectiveness and limits, but it still hadn't taken too much. Desmond didn't think this piece of armour, for all its features, would survive the first fight with Zeus. So what of the man who wore it?

Desmond opened his eyes and stared at the mousy-grey of the ceiling above. They were flying in a private plane belonging to Abstergo and it was _huge _for just the few people. Much to Desmond's disappointment, neither Rebecca nor Shaun were allowed to join them. Ostensibly to minimise the threat to their lives, but Desmond was fairly certain Abstergo or Blackwatch wanted to cut down on the number of Assassins in the whole operation. Lucy had, although very vaguely, implied there would be other cells to join once they got to the US, provided they survived long enough. Lucy either didn't know or she _did _know and didn't want to tell him.

On the bright side, Vidic was also not on board. Desmond would have enjoyed his absence a whole lot more if he didn't suspect Vidic was involved in breeding more clones somewhere in Abstergo's basement. Desmond wasn't above picturing one of those clones skewering Vidic fairly early on in the experiment.

Desmond pushed himself into a sitting position and took a look out the window to see a featureless blue sky. He groaned when he pulled himself back to his feet. His ribs still hurt, but he seemed to be healing amazingly well. Perhaps some of those touted genes of his actually serving a purpose for once.

As he got up, he took his time to survey the cabin and the various states of boredom and sleepiness among his companions. Wyland was asleep, spread out over several seats like Desmond had been, with her head resting at an angle that would give her a stiff neck by the time she tried moving it again.

Salinger was with her back to Desmond and a laptop in front of her. She was not, contrary to every expectation, reading some top secret file or writing an equally top secret report. She was playing a game, something with bright happy colours and a Ferris wheel. She grunted when she noticed Desmond, either a greeting or a warning not to laugh, he had no idea.

Lucy sat a little further down the aisle, reading in the back half of a thick book and occasionally casting long glances in Altaïr's direction. The Assassin was seated across two seats, his legs folded under him and another computer in his lap, staring intently at the screen. He had somehow managed to convince everyone that he should be allowed to keep one of the simpler hidden blades, or perhaps no one had wanted to argue with him after his last training session with Salinger and the utterly ruined armour hanging from his arms.

"Anybody else want some coffee?" Desmond asked as he picked his way down the aisle and to the kitchen. They didn't have flight attendants for secrecy reasons and the pilots had seen any of them board, nor did they have any idea what they were flying. Desmond supposed those were your normal working conditions at Abstergo.

"Yes, please," Lucy said and glanced at her watch. "We are ahead of schedule. Weather has cleared and we should be at Harrisburg in less than two hours."

"You realise we'll all be jet-lagged for a week?" Desmond asked distractedly, fumbling with the coffee machine.

"We'll have some time," Lucy said. "They have a D-Code instructor at the Blackwatch base and it's right at the edge of the Red Zone, we should start slowly. Altaïr needs some first hand experience with fighting infected."

Salinger snapped her laptop closed, drawing even Altaïr's attention with the noise it made.

"It's probably time to address the elephant," she said.

Desmond leaned his shoulder into the wall, looking at her while the coffee began to gargle in the background. Altaïr looked back at his screen and even the back of his head seemed puzzled to Desmond. By the looks of it, Altaïr had been watching more videos of his target. After a moment, he put a finger on the space bar and pressed down tenderly until the video paused.

"You say it like it'd be a big surprise," Desmond remarked. "Like we all can't see some new disaster coming. We probably do. Fire at will, _ell-tee_."

She glared, but didn't seem to have the energy to argue. She said, "We don't know where Zeus is currently."

"Yeah, he's very inconspicuous," Desmond nodded understandingly.

"It is also in control of the entire East Coast and the Red Zone is reaching inward frighteningly far already. We've stalled the advance by building a wall and we are holding it only because there doesn't seem to be any concerted effort by the infected to breach it. Our surveillance drones can sniff out only so much and it _is _a lot of ground to cover. Besides, Zeus is a shapeshifter, _inconspicuous _enough to vanish. "

Desmond pulled his brows up. "It _is _a pretty big elephant," he said. He only saw the side of Lucy's face, but her misgiving was obvious.

Salinger reached into the bag by her side and pulled out a folder. She got up and put the folder on the table in front of Lucy, opening it to reveal a stack of photographs. Altaïr put away the laptop and got up to stand slightly behind her, looking over her shoulder. Desmond came closer, too.

"What you are looking at are pictures of NYC," Salinger explained. "This is the old Gentek building, we think it's some kind of superhive now. We've been monitoring it and there have been extensive alterations on the building's structure. The area around it is also noteworthy."

"Why?" Desmond squinted. The pictures were quite grainy, not what he'd expect of an organisation like Blackwatch, but perhaps even they were beginning to be pressed for equipment. Maybe they had rigged a Cold War spy satellite for these shots.

"It's been cleaned up and we haven't been able to detect many infected around it." Salinger grimaced. "And it looks like Zeus is collecting armour and helicopters around the place. Such behaviour is untypical even for the more intelligent infected, so we know it must be Zeus itself."

She shoved the photographs across the narrow table until she found the picture she was looking for. This picture was noticeably clearer than the others and it showed the Gentek skyscrape in vicious colour. The entire building was covered in some kind of reddish webbing, with room-sized pustules hanging off its sides. Some form of bombardment had laid to waste the area directly north of it and yes, the resulting space had been cleaned of rubble and now showed neat rows of vehicles — not just tanks, also trucks and cars by the looks of it — and the distinct shape of helicopters.

"An organised monster," Desmond said. "Great."

"This is his stronghold?" Altaïr asked. "How high is this?"

"Fifty-one stories," Salinger said.

"If you know where he is, why don't you just drop a bomb on his head?" Desmond asked.

"This is _guesswork," _Salinger said impatiently. "And we can't be sure if Zeus is there, or if it would even die."

His arms crossed over his chest, Desmond dug a skeptical gaze into her. "You keep saying that," he said, casual tone to emphasis his point. "Which brings us to the question, if you don't know if Zeus is going to drop if you nuke his ass, what makes you think all of Altaïr's toys will do more than amuse him?"

Unexpectedly, it was Altaïr who answered, cool eyes resting on Desmond without any shadow of concern. "They do not think that. I am merely a distraction. I am expected to hold my own against your plague carrier better than anyone else. I will lock him in battle, while the real war is fought elsewhere."

Salinger's control was admirable, but she failed to stop her eyes from widening, from casting a long look at Altaïr. She caught herself immediately, snapped her mouth closed and squared her shoulders. _This _she had not meant to reveal.

"There is no connection between Zeus and the nuke."

Desmond nodded and turned back to the kitchen.

"Ah, sorry, must have slipped my mind," he said mildly. He busied himself with the coffee and gave her no chance to object.

"How do we find him, then?" Altaïr asked.

"Well, for the time being, we don't," Salinger said. "Your training needs to be completed and you still need experience fighting infected. After that, we do have a few plans to lure Zeus out, but while it's been regularly spotted during the first two outbreaks, Zeus has been very little in evidence this time. We have only a dozen confirmed sightings."

Desmond found plastic cups and spoons in a cabinet, went rifling through a tiny fridge for milk, where someone had also thoughtfully put the sugar. He frowned at it, but shrugged it off.

"That's strange, isn't it?" Lucy asked.

"I wouldn't know," Salinger said. She gave Desmond a venomous look when he came back carrying three cups, but finally softened her expression when he offered her the coffee. Grudgingly, she said, "Thanks."

Lucy took the cup from Desmond's hand.

Desmond said, "Altaïr? You want coffee, too?"

Altaïr hesitated, eyeing the cups. "That vile black liquid? No."

Desmond grinned, "Glad to know there are still _differences _between us. I'm sure they've got tea somewhere, you want some?"

"Later."

"The truth is," Salinger picked up the topic again. "We have no idea what the psyche of a sentient virus looks like. Wyland can give you some insight into Mercer's original psychological profile. It's been a decent guideline so far, better than nothing at least, but don't overestimate it's usefulness."

Desmond settled in the seat opposite Altaïr, cradling the coffee, feeling as the heat seeped through the plastic, it burned his fingers but he leaned into the tingling pain for a long moment, before he put the cup down on the narrow table.

We are going to war, he thought and there was an echo at the back his mind that he was beginning to recognise. Voices from the past, echoes of lives, trace elements of people who had walked this edge before him. _We are going to war, _they said with him and their connotations were all different; eager and cocky to grave and determined. _We understand nothing of the future, but we will make to make it a better place, _each in their own way and each writing in their own blood.

Desmond watched as Altaïr looked through Salinger's photographs with that odd intense calm of his, utterly focused on his goal and seemingly not to care what it would mean to him. Wryly, Desmond thought Blackwatch and Abstergo had picked their cat's paw well, in this at least.

He reached out for the cup again and pressed his fingers back into radiating the heat.

* * *

The land stretching out below the plane was war-torn and ravaged. Shanty towns had sprung up around Harrisburg, far into the countryside and changing the face of the US forever. Large, new, sprawling cities almost, though huddled low to the ground with nothing to suggest this country had any spirit left. The Red Border itself was clearly visible, coloured for everyone who would see it from on high.

"What _is _that red stuff?" Desmond asked. It looked like algae from the plane, great wide swathes of them, covering everything, from abandoned towns to crawling along highways scattered with derelict cars and trucks. Some places were pockmarked by a slew of bomb craters, filling with red, bloodied. The entire East Coast seemed like a great, gaping, festering wound. Things were no better on the other side of the Border, with nothing but barren, destroyed land.

"Viral growth," Wyland explained. "What we are seeing is the most common effect of Redlight on plant cells. Viruses can't replicate on their own, they need a host cell. This is what happens when the host is neither human nor animal, but plants or even bacteria. It spreads infection."

"That's why we've cleared such a wide berth on the other side," Salinger cut in. "And because it's easier if you don't have any civilians wandering through your line of fire."

"And the airborne virus can only travel so far," Wyland added.

Harrisburg was under martial law, just like everywhere else, but Desmond and the others only caught a brief glimpse of it before they were ushered back into a bus and driven to a waiting helicopter.

It had been late afternoon in Rome when they had set out, but they had outflown the night and it was still bright afternoon, now, though the sky had a murky, washed-out colour. The horizon to the west was edged in bloody, ghosting red.

Desmond was still waiting for Altaïr to make _some _remark regarding the fact that they had flying machines, but he seemed to have taken it in his stride.

"Nothing is ever still in this world," Altaïr said unexpectedly, as he stepped from the bus to Desmond's side.

"What do you mean?"

"Nothing is ever just an object. Everything _moves _of its own. Your pictures, your carriages, your doors, even your weapons. There are the machines on the ceilings in Rome that stalk my every move."

"The cameras?" Desmond said with a grimace. "Yeah, Abstergo isn't big on privacy." Desmond laughed a little to himself. "Come to think of it, even our viruses can't be bothered to remember their place. You could be onto something there."

Altaïr shook his head. "I know these things are not alive, but they react to me as if they are… aware."

Salinger turned back to them. "Come on! Let's get this bird in the air!"

The lazy turn of the rotors accelerated, pushing against them in dust-spike gusts of wind.

"It is also very noisy," Altaïr added, lifting his voice over the roar of the engine.

"Helmet," Salinger ordered as they climbed into the helicopter one after the other. Desmond crammed himself in a seat beside Lucy, fiddling with the helmet. Altaïr took his own seat with a tense, manufactured calm. He watched Desmond before he put his own helmet on, then mimicked him.

The pilot's voice came over the helmet, "All buckled up?"

The helicopter's engine roared louder, beating the air with its rotors and the helicopter climbed into the air.

"Wheels up," the pilot announced. "ETA Queenside FOB twenty-hundred. Enjoy the view, ladies, the red line's at ten o'clock."

It was worse, so much worse than it had been from the plane. Although they flew well clear of the Red Zone — larger infected had a habit of throwing debris at helicopter within range — the devastation wrecked on the country painted itself below and around them in bleak, bare ground and bombed or burned out houses. Everything was empty, the area had been evacuated months ago and no one was stupid enough to try to move back in. So close to the Red Zone, viral exposure was too high and Blackwatch had long since established a 'shoot first' rule about anything even remotely suspicious.

"Queenside is a good testing ground," Salinger explained. "For some reason they have fewer problems than the other bases along the red line. It's designated our primary evac location and medical treatment facilities."

"Why is it more quiet there?" Lucy asked.

"Our best guess is Zeus' wants to breach Kingside Command," Salinger said. "It'd cut off Blackwatch's head if it did. We've fought two bad wars before this one. It's not a big secret that we aren't what we once were. We are holding, but there are some hits we won't be able to take."

"It would be a good trap," Altaïr observed. "If you have something Zeus wants."

"It's only a trap if we can make it snap."

"A fake bait will work when the prey does not know it is fake."

"Believe it or not, we _have _been thinking of ways to use it," Salinger smiled a little. "But without offering Zeus all our assets on a silver platter."

Altaïr seemed to considered the topic closed, but Salinger kept her gaze fixed on him.

"Don't underestimate Zeus," she said. "Just because we can't comprehend its intelligence doesn't mean it's stupid."

"I do not think that."

Somewhat exasperated, Salinger leaned back in her seat, turned her head to stare out the window. "You don't seem to be taking it seriously enough."

"I am," Altaïr said. "But I am not yet war-weary."

"You'll be soon enough," Salinger muttered. She said nothing more, clearly trying to live down the unexpected show of emotion, the crack in her impeccable facade. For a tiny instant, Salinger had become the face of the war and the toll it would take and the shape of their future defeat.

* * *

Desmond wasn't entirely sure what he had expected of Queenside. A military camp, for one, though Desmond had never been anywhere near an actual military operation, so he had only a movie-skewed idea of what it should be like. The closest he had ever been to soldiers was when they spent their off-duty hours at his bar.

So this was… something else. For one, it didn't take long to tell the difference between Blackwatch and regular personnel, even without paying attention to their uniform. Blackwatch was careless, Desmond would call them undisciplined, but he suspected it was something else. Blackwatch had stood outside the normal hierarchy for so long, they had nothing but ridicule left for it. They respected only each other and their commanding officers, the others were worth little more than their cannon-fodder value. Otherwise the camp seemed moderately clean and in order, though everything had a worn, weathered look to it. Everyone had been here too long, the fight all beginning to go out of them or bleed into fatalistic tunnel vision.

They were greeted without ceremony or entourage by a single man, who introduced himself at Lt. General Benham. He was a tall man, somewhat scrawny and disconcertingly soft-spoken. He had steely control, worn paper-thin in preceding months. A man, Desmond thought, who already knew he was going to die in this place and who had made his peace with it a long time ago.

"We've cleaned out a tent for you," Benham explained, motioned for them to follow him. "Luxury edition with toilets and a shower. I'll assign a Private to you to help you get around the camp, but don't monopolise his time."

"I was told there would be a D-Code?" Salinger said.

"Specialist Li is currently deployed in the Red Zone," Benham said. "She should be back in a day or so."

He looked at Salinger, "We've got Rooks standing by for a report."

"I'll need to call my boss, too," Wyland said.

Benham regarded her in silence, his expression unreadable. "Of course. Your tent has a landline connection."

"No cell?"

"Coverage is shot all to hell."

Wyland frowned, but said nothing.

Benham stopped in front of a tent. "Here we are," he said. He lifted an arm. "Chow hall is down that way, it's known to be slightly less deadly than the infection, but tastes worse."

He looked at Salinger and she nodded, joined him as he walked away without another word.

The tent was furnished with four beds, each with a footlocker. A small table with chairs and, miraculously, an old couch constituted the only attempt at homeliness. A canvas wall separated the back of the tent from the rest, presumably for the shower and toilet.

Desmond stopped in the doorway while the others filed past him, randomly picking one of the beds and putting their travel bags away. Altaïr had been carrying the larger suitcase with his weapons and it made the metal frame of the bed groan under its weight.

"You said the armour would repair itself," Altaïr said with a note of curiosity.

"It should be ready," Wyland nodded. She dug through her bag. "Is it okay if I shower first?"

"Knock yourself out," Desmond said.

Wyland ducked out through the other door.

Desmond sat down on the bed beside Altaïr, watching with just as much curiosity as Altaïr pulled the coat from the suitcase. It unfolded with its silvery metallic sheen on perfect white, no hint of damage was visible, not so much as a crease.

"Wait, you don't plan to go now, do you?" Lucy asked.

Altaïr draped the coat over the bed and set to unpack the other pieces of the armour, assembling the weapons on the bed.

"I see no reason why not," he said carelessly. "I have, what you call jet-lag. I am wide awake. Why should I waste more time? Time was essential, no?"

"But we need to…" Lucy stuttered. "Plan, set-up, Salinger isn't here and Wyland…"

"You doubt I can do this," Altaïr pointed out. "And I am just as curious."

"Not really the scientific method," Desmond remarked. He slipped back on the bed and crossed his legs under him. For some reason, it amused him that Altaïr paid no attention to what the was supposed to be doing, or even in what order. Desmond suspected this was all going very different to what Abstergo — or even Lucy — had expected. Altaïr wasn't much of a team player, Desmond recalled. He ran out of patience too quickly and it annoyed him when he had to coordinate with others, who might not be able to keep up with him or lacked his instincts.

Lucy cast a look at Desmond, who only shrugged. He felt a new eagerness crawl up his own throat and he wasn't quite sure if he liked it or not. His hands itched for the weight of a blade and his muscles tensed with the want to spring. It wasn't entirely _his _feeling, he knew, but it was difficult to _care. _

Altaïr dragged the Abstergo sweater over his head and tossed it aside.

"No, not really," Lucy said, but her expression softened. For all the doubt Altaïr had cast on her allegiance, Desmond could still see the Assassin in her. Perhaps she had simply been at Abstergo too long and she would find her balance again once she was out from their influence.

Lucy turned away and busied herself with unpacking her own bag, giving Altaïr some privacy in which to change.

Desmond did no such thing. He knew Altaïr wouldn't care, he regarded them as fellow warriors — though of questionable loyalty or vocation — and this was a crisis. Personal decency had its place, but it was fairly low on the list of priorities.

In many ways, it was still strange to _see _Altaïr, to not be inside his skin and command his body. After long Animus sessions, Desmond had sometimes found being _himself _hopelessly weird. Nothing had been right, no movement, no sense of place. And here he was, real and solid, like he had been split from Desmond and carved out of his chest and mind to lead a life of his own.

There had always been a part of Altaïr that had felt alien to Desmond, an otherworldly quality that set him apart from his peers. It had been obvious to him right from the start, long before anyone had given it a name and put the finger on his genetic makeup. Technically, Desmond supposed it should be there in him, too, but gifts needed to be honed, didn't they, to fulfil their potential. Altaïr had been trained for this since childhood — flashes of memories in Desmond's mind, if he wanted them — Altaïr had learned how to _wear _the strangeness he had been given. Always on the edge of being demonic, something other than human. Always faster than the others, always stronger, more agile, more resilient. His eyes, the people in Masyaf had whispered hundreds of years ago, saw more than they should.

Enough to see through the Apple's illusion, at the very least.

The alarm went off when Altaïr slipped on the first of the wired gauntlets. He flinched, though checked his response immediately and stood calmly while the siren wavered not far away.

Lucy stood away from her bed, looking from Altaïr to Desmond.

"Well," Desmond said. "That's very convenient."

"Yes, it is," Altaïr agreed and it might mean many things, though none of them good.

Wyland burst out of the shower, hastily wrapped in a towel. "What the hell is going on?"

"Zombies?" Desmond offered.

The tent flap was yanked open and a young man stuck his head in. He seemed a little out of breath. He pushed the flap aside completely and straightened, saluted quickly. "Private Ramsey, General Benham sends me."

"What's happening?" Lucy asked.

"We've got infected in 2-SC, ma'am. That's a survivors' camp. I can take you to the command centre for observation."

Wyland cursed and dipped back into the bathroom, no doubt to throw some clothes on. Lucy reached for something in her bag and then walked around the bed. "Good, let's go. Desmond? Here."

Desmond unfurled from his position, heart beating in his throat when he spotted what was in Lucy's hand and he couldn't stop the quick, manic grin when she shoved a hidden blade bracer in his direction. It was a normal one, like Altaïr had worn on the plane. Useless against anything but normal infected — but viciously effective against human targets — but Desmond still felt like coming home.

He zoned out what Ramsey was saying, his world shrunk down to the leather and metal contraption as it slipped around his wrist and settled there as if it had been a part of him all along, completing him in a way he didn't want to question.

"Where is 2-SC?" Altaïr asked, he strode past Ramsey, silent despite the gear, easily graceful despite its weight.

Ramsey hesitated, followed him outside, Lucy and Desmond hurrying after them.

"I don't think…" Ramsey began.

"As a suggestion," Lucy said bemusedly. "Just point and let me argue with Benham."

"As you say, ma'am," Ramsey said, blinking. He pulled something from his pocket and held an earplug out toward Altaïr, "But wear this, can't have you get lost, sir. The General would have my head."

Altaïr took the plug and held it between his gloved fingertips.

"In your ear," Desmond said. "So we can talk to you."

As Altaïr fiddled the thing in his ear and then pulled the hood up, letting its shadow cover most of his face so only the slight smile on the corners of his mouth was still visible. Ramsey watched him in silence for a moment, then seemed to collect himself and reached out an arm. "That way," he said simply. "I'll call ahead."

Altaïr nodded. He gave Desmond and Lucy a quick look before he turned and was gone, weaving through the rows of tents effortlessly.

* * *

_"… you're first priority is to contain the infected, but check your targets, we've got a lot of panicked civilians running loose. Evac points have been established, so rely any survivors back up the line. Also, we've got a new super soldier in the field. Give the man in white some breathing room. Every hit he takes won't end up in your face. Ain't no bragging rights for anyone who fucks this up…"_

The voice in his ear was distracting, it threw off the accuracy of his hearing as he followed the direction the young soldier had given. He wondered what would happen if he dropped the thing, _accidentally _lost it during the fighting. Surely these tiny contraptions weren't very valuable? But apparently this was how a modern army organised itself, so he would be better off paying attention and compensating for it, rather than ignore it.

_"Altaïr?" _Desmond's voice, disturbingly intimate right inside his head.

"Yes," he replied.

The camp had been set up in a neat grid, orderly and easy to navigate even without much more than vague directions and it took him only a few minutes to reach a barricaded gate. Units of heavily armed and armoured soldiers were running through and sparing him only a short glance.

_"They say they've got about fifty full-blown human infected, you know, walkers, plus at least five hunter types," _Desmond said in his ear. Altaïr resisted the urge to twitch his head.

_"By the way, we can see you," _Desmond added. _"Cameras up on the poles. Give a wave." _

Altaïr glanced up briefly, saw the poles Desmond had mentioned and the dark boxes attached to it. Large birds circled in the leaden sky above and caught his eye rather than the cameras. He didn't wave.

Stepping through the gate was like stepping into an entirely different world. _Yet _another, as the case may be for him. There were no orderly rows of tents here, though he could tell there must originally have been. This must be where the army settled the fugitives, but they had left them mostly to their own devices. Some military tents could still be seen, but often they had been moved to lean against each other, old wood or metal sheets or great, dirty canvases had been used to expand them.

He gave them a quick look, but decided none of these shacks would be able to take his weight, nor were they dense enough to offer a suitable pathway away from the ground for him to use.

The soldier had set up a defensive perimeter around the gate, protected by vicious wires and massive, mounted guns. They let him through without a word, taking care not to accidentally get in his way.

The people who lived in the camp had not been allowed through the gate, but instead were herded further along the wall to some other, hopefully secure, place. Altaïr lacked the time to adequately judge their numbers, but he supposed there were hundreds in this part of the camp alone and it stretched far. He had seen it from he sky when they had flown in. Thousands of people, then.

Altaïr stalked between the rows of tents and shacks, against the flood of fleeing, panicked people and past the more cautious soldiers that gave him a wide berth. It took a while until he noticed the soldiers were taking their cues from him, quietly and efficiently taking up flanking positions without hampering his movement in any way, leaving him on point.

Walkers, Altaïr thought. Human, more or less, susceptible to pain and crippling damage, incapable of complex reasoning. They would only be dangerous in large numbers, or when under direct control through their hivemind. Hunters were a far more serious threat. Their bulk alone would make them formidable foes and they were smart, too.

He sensed them a moment before one of the soldiers gave the warning call and then they burst out from between a shack and a pile of trash, screaming like the damned and deformed, claws for hands with their skin burst to allow organs to grow out of the wounds, bulging into the air, shifting and beating with the remnants of their life.

Altaïr stopped and watched them advance, gauging them. He settled his hand on the hilt of the sabre, still surprised in how familiar the weapon was. Lucy had given it to him, the very last of the weapons they had showed him and the least magical of them all. No technology or invention, no trickery so he did not realise the futility of the fight he had been given. Just a sword, with a hilt and a balance like the sword he had worn most of his life.

Just a sword and the low, familiar grate as he slid it free and the imagine hiss of air as the blade cut the nothingness before him, eager for a more substantial feast. And the first of the infected reached him.

Altaïr sidestepped the clumsy lunge of the infected, using the move to slice open its belly, before he brought the sword up and around to hack down on the creature's neck, beheading it cleanly. He didn't stop to watch it fall. He stepped further, free from the still flailing creature and slashed the sword in a great arc before him, through three more infected that had thought to throw themselves at him.

Gunfire started by his sides as the soldiers finally collected themselves and the noise startled Altaïr more than the infected. Some veered away from Altaïr to tear into the soldiers.

He barely paid attention to either soldier or infected, for all they tried to tear him apart. He was fascinated by the ease with which his new sword would bite through bone. He felt the resistance as it travelled up the blade, but with a faint tensing of muscles in his arm and shoulder and the blade never had to slow. The changes, as Wyland had called, he had known they had increased his strength, he had felt it immediately after waking up, enough to trust he could punch in a solid door, but he had no experience punching in doors, he didn't know how it was supposed to feel like. But he _did_ know what it felt if you caught your blade on bone and every time, it was a sign of sloppiness, a miscalculation and you paid dearly, losing precious seconds to tear the blade free.

Another group of infected launched themselves at him, only to be cut down and be left in a useless pile of shivering meat. He had learned the lesson well, these infected were only alive in the sense that they still moved, but only a crippling injury or overwhelming pain would stop them, if he had no time to finish a kill, otherwise they would just keep coming at him.

He heard a surprised yelp from the side and snapped his head around. One of the infected had managed to sneak up on the soldiers from behind and had latched onto his shoulder, sinking it's teeth deep into flesh even through the protective layers of clothing. The soldier tried to shake it off, but could get a good grip.

Altaïr tilted his head to the side, judging the angle and the way man and creature jerked. He pulled a knife from its holster on his thigh and threw. The knife hit the creature's eye with so much force it was yanked backward and down, the tip of the knife coming out the back of its skull and pinning it struggling to the ground. It had torn loose a large chunk of cloth and flesh, sputtering. The soldier howled in shock and pain, but then recovered, threw himself around and used the butt of his gun to beat the creature until it stopped moving.

There was a pause in gunfire, some incomprehensible chatter over the earplug, something about surveillance being down and that they were launching drones to compensate. Whatever that even meant.

Eyeing the shacks around him, he picked the one that looked least likely to collapse under his weight and scaled its side, coming to stand easily balanced on a beam to survey his surrounding. Some of the soldiers regrouped close by, while one of their number was arguing with the wounded one about a retreat.

It was getting dark too fast. In only a few minutes, artificial lights would come on and bath the entire camp in either blinding white or pitch-black shadow. He understood the drive to light the darkness, but he wasn't sure if they went about it in the right way, but perhaps it was merely because he understood the nature of firelight and knew how to predict its flicker to hide him while it revealed his prey.

From his new vantage point, Altaïr saw the sprawl of the camp and the chaotic maze laid over the ordered layout. A group of infected was advancing on them from his right and he looked down to direct the soldiers when another movement caught his attention, off just to the left, low between the tents and too quiet for its speed and bulk, making an obvious beeline for him.

_Hunter, _Desmond had said. They came in several varieties, though all of them oversized with nothing recognisably human left, unlike the other infected.

It burst out into the open, stopped a moment and then jumped into the midst of the soldiers before they had time to react. The hunter gripped one of the soldiers and tossed him aside, ripped clawed paws through another and leaped again, up on where Altaïr stood.

The shack caved under it, but Altaïr had already jumped away, backward and down blindly. The hunter lost its footing, fought itself free of the shack's debris and charged at Altaïr with bared, saliva-slick teeth. Altaïr parried the first lunge of the hunter's claws with the sword, feeling real resistance for the first time and the hunter didn't pull back, simply advanced. The tip of the sword had cut open the hunter's paw, but the pink flesh writhed and the cut began to close.

Altaïr evaded a slap with the other paw and the hunter put its full weight behind it, but managed only to snatch at the hem of his coat, claws uselessly scraping over the material and finding no purchase. Altaïr stepped back again, aware he was getting close to another tent and he would have to retreat to the side if it came to it. But there was enough room between them now and the hunter opened its maw again and spread its paws, jumped with all its strength to crush Altaïr under it. Instead, the Assassin dipped aside at the last moment and the hunter failed to compensate, crashing into the ground. Altaïr rammed the sword down through it's neck until he felt the blade cut into the dirt. He pushed the sword in to the hilt and let go.

The hunter still struggled, enraged, caught between the drive to tear itself loose and pain warning it of the fatality of such an action. It tried to rise, pull the sword free with it. Altaïr dragged another knife from its holster, turned it in his hand and slashed down at the joint of the creature's massive shoulder. Viscous blood welled forth, sickly black and with the stink of something rotten. It clung to his hands, crawled up his sleeves like a living thing. A drop hit his Altaïr's face and sit on his cheek, burning.

Desmond's voice came over the earplug, frantic. _"Altaïr! It's a leader! Oh god! Turn around!"_

Altaïr dragged the knife free, the hunter's half-severed limb twitching and flailing. Altaïr threw himself around in an attempt to get clear, but he wasn't fast enough, getting caught between the bulk of the leader and the wildly struggling hunter he had been carving up. The leader wrapped a clawed paw around his waist, picked him up and threw him into a makeshift lean-to. Dry wood splintered around him, tough canvas keeping him tangled so he could only roll back to his feet awkwardly.

Distantly, he was aware of Desmond yelling in his ear, the other soldiers yelling close by, but his focus narrowed to the leader as it pounced him, crashing debris, trying to bury him under it's weight. Altaïr waited until the leader landed and raised its arm to pick him up again to snatch it out of the air, wrapping his fingers around the leader's arm. Altaïr released the hidden blade.

The creature spasmed when the lightning flowed into it's body, momentarily immobilising. Altaïr stabbed the other hidden blade into its face from below, twisting his wrist to increase the damage the small blade caused.

_Two brains, two spines, _Wyland had said.

_Savage motherfuckers,_ Salinger had said.

Altaïr pulled both hands back and the leader slumped a little, eyes wide and full of rage as it's face was level with Altaïr's. Not just a beast, but something worse. He saw a glimmer of alien intelligence, beyond his understanding in almost all ways. All but one, Altaïr hoped as he bared his own teeth in an expression close to a smile. You could not scare these things, everyone had said so, but if the creatures could think and reason, in whatever way their strange biology dictated, than it would recognise the face of its demise.

Altaïr gripped the side of its neck, stabbing the hidden blade into resisting flesh and used the leverage to pull himself up on it's back.

He reset the lightning blade and the leader shuddered in a useless attempt to shake him. The flesh began to deform around the blade, trying to find some way to counter the current rendering its muscles useless. Altaïr tossed the knife in the air and caught it, stabbed it down into the skin between both spines, their jagged edges clearly visible under the pallid skin. He drew the knife down.

The creature lurched forward, then almost toppled sideways, pain overpowering whatever lock the lightning had on it, but Altaïr only twisted the hidden blade to bury it deeper and used it to hold his place. He dug his heels into the beast's sides to steady himself further.

It was slow work, forcing the knife to carve out the spine from flesh that kept overgrowing the gap. It clung to his fingers, pushed against him. The leader shook violently as Altaïr laid bare both its spines, bucking, shifting bone and joint. Altaïr sheathed the knife and reached into the gap he had made, forced his armoured fingers to part flesh and muscles.

He pulled the hidden blade free and this time the leader reacted immediately, throwing itself to the side and trying to roll on its back, but before it could finish, Altaïr had both his hands wrapped around his spine, blades free again and the hunter merely fell to the side, limbs twitching uselessly.

Altaïr shifted back, braced his feet into the leader's back and _yanked _with all his might_. _

In his ear, Desmond said, _"Holy. _Shit_!"_

Altaïr's muscles burned with the effort and his fingers began to slip on slimy tissue. Tendrils snaked up his arms to dislodge him, but the lightning seemed to keep them just barely in check. Finally, with an ugly, gut-wrenching crack, the spinal cord gave way, first on the left, then the right crunched and snapped free. Altaïr lost his hold, fell back and the contact with the leader broke.

It tried to rise, heaving in rage and anger, but its body wouldn't respond. Altaïr rolled back to his feet and stepped clear of it, watched the beast as it struggled and his own breathing slowed back to normal.

He wasn't sure how long he stood there, the whole fight couldn't have taken more than a few minutes or so, but it felt like forever. Fights always did, they warped the meaning of time, made it follow his command rather than whatever laws normally guided it. Time, it had always seemed to him, was willing to give him what space he needed to do what he must.

He wiped the smear from his face and paid some new attention to his surrounding. The soldiers had cleared other infected, though by the looks of it there hadn't been too many of them. He spotted two downed soldiers and another tending to them.

He walked over to where he had killed the hunter, extracted his sword and returned to the leader. The beast was too massive for a clean decapitation, and it still kept trying to move, get away, making a sound closer to a whimper than a roar. It sounded almost human, as if some core had been exposed by the damage, its bestiality peeled away at the end in a final cruelty.

Altaïr sawed through it's neck, skewered both brains and the thing finally stopped twitching, the tendrils of its flesh in its wounds went still.

The chattering in his ear told him there was still fighting going on elsewhere, he turned and caught the eye of one of the soldiers, staring back at him with eyes so wide they were visible even behind his mask.

Altaïr said, "Where to next?"

* * *

By some miracle or other, the bomb curtain that had cleared the area, had left this house nearly untouched. Its roof was partially collapsed, the beams of its truss reaching sharply into the air like the fingers of a skeleton in feeble admonishment of the injustice done to it. The darkening sky would soon swallow it, painting black against black, but for now, a murky sunset outlined the silhouette of a man perched on the edge of the roof.

The scent of death was in the wind, hints of sweat and fear and the breeze did little to get rid of it. Sometimes it clung to him, writhing like a living thing, desperately clawing at what he was, looking for handhold. He could sense the mass of people before him and the teeming, hungering masses of infected behind. His skin prickled in an unwelcome reminder of how he hadn't finished shifting out of Specialist Li's form. He had been in her disguise for too long, for the convenience of coming and going in Queenside as he pleased, especially after the viral detectors no longer picked him up, but it was an ill-fitting glove. It _chafed. _

There is an irony in it, of course, none of these faces he wore were his own, none of the skeletons he imitates, none of the muscles that drive him. He allowed himself to be constrained not only into a human form, but into one _specific _human from, alterations notwithstanding. The monster's face, the _real _monster, the one who had started it all. And in dying Alex Mercer had inevitably given birth to another monster.

There was a reason why he still couldn't shake him, why he still wore his face and body and why nothing else felt truly like his own. The others, he had to _think _to keep them in place. If left to its own, his flesh would revert, reshape itself into familiar lines. Mercer was the only voice in his head he could clearly identify, his were the only urges he knew how to name. For bad. And then for worse.

He let it happened, felt the way his flesh changed all the way. His own now. Perhaps it was a last revenge to his creator and in that thought he might make his peace with it in time.

With some reluctance, he reached for the hivemind. It still required effort to it, he had to draw on Greene's memories to do. In a way, if he tapped the hivemind, he had to become Redlight and every instinct he had insisted that it was too inferior for him. He called the birds back from the camp, felt the pathetic eagerness with which they followed the command.

They circled above him for a moment until he plucked at one of them, called it down and the bird landed on his shoulder. It had been a crow, once, only recently infected and not yet completely changed by the infection. He reached out with Mercer's long-fingered scientist's hand, stroked the soiled black feathers and felt the bird become calm.

He had once tried to take knowledge from the hivemind directly, but either it couldn't be done or it couldn't be done by _him. _He had no intention of becoming Greene just to do so, she had squandered her right to survival.

He tightened his grip around the bird and it panicked for a moment, remnants of its animal instinct momentarily taking over and then dying again as he wrapped the bird in tiny tendrils and slowly absorbed it into himself, delicately breaking its neck just before it was gone completely. It caused a spark, pain like pleasure, a moment's gratification to offset the tedious task of sifting through the bird's animal-dull memories.

* * *

_End of Chapter 7_


	8. This Midnight Hour

**PLEASE Note:** The **rating has been upped to 'M'** as a precaution. I don't want the only review I receive for this chapter to be a complaint about consensual sex being somehow completely disgusting. Unlike, you know, all the violence I've written before.

* * *

**8. This Midnight Hour**

* * *

The newscaster droned on and on and _fucking _on about the outbreak down south, throwing around ever more exaggerated — or not — numbers of infected or dead or military casualties, of problems in the camps outside the Red Border, of Blackwatch talking over the country in a coup. Canada had locked its borders tight, with nothing getting in any way _at all, _at least according to the official statement. The message was clear, false, but clear: Canada is perfectly safe.

They had been proclaiming it for so long and so often, it had long lost any meaning. Nothing was safe, Canada least of all and no border was going to stop this infection. No, if it wasn't here already, it was because Mercer had some reason for not doing it, some grand world-shattering plan. He'd get around to contaminate Canada soon enough. It only begged the question, really, whether Heller was just going to take it lying down. Whatever 'it' was, but he didn't even need to know to be sure it couldn't be good.

Heller had been going over their conversation in his head, like some stupid record, stuck on repeat. Like the newscaster, but with less comforting lies to tell. It had put him in a worse-than-normal mood, hanging around their tiny apartment and wearing through the spring suspension on the couch, growling and hissing at Dana like he was nothing but some retarded animal come in from the wild.

Dana, who practically managed his entire life. Who picked Amaya up from school, who paid for most of it and who sat at the kitchen table right now with Amaya, laughing over pasta. Dana, who, when the light was all wrong and she put her head the wrong way, would look so much like her brother, Heller had to fight the urge to lash out at her. Dana, who he trusted with his daughter's life and wellbeing, but who he wasn't sure he could trust with Mercer.

So he hadn't said anything, even as the tension grew to breaking point and she wasn't stupid. She knew something was up, of course she did. And she had said nothing for the longest time, playing pretend for Amaya, who — _give her some credit, Jimmy_ — was just playing pretend, too.

He had tried participating in dinner once. They were a family, right? Even a crooked and weird one. But it couldn't work. _Didn't _work. He could eat food, he could even derive some small nourishment from it. Organic matter was organic matter, but it wasn't _right. _Dead cells didn't agree with him and the sheer amount he needed made the entire dinner affair another piece of useless playacting. His patience had ran out ages ago and so he left them to it instead.

For his part, he subsided as humanely as possible. Since he didn't get into regular firefights, he burned through his biomass at a much slower rate than he had, he didn't _need _to kill to survive, or at least only very rarely. But he couldn't stand the thought of any kind of association between family dinner and his other appetites.

In the end, he didn't fight back, just followed Dana outside and on the balcony when she gave him a very pointed look for so long, he could no longer pretend he hadn't noticed. Dinner done, Amaya had taken over the television when he deserted it, playing a game without a care in the world.

He hated the balcony. It was too small, barely enough space for the rickety chair Dana had put there. It was not _nearly _enough space for the two of them. She was too close like this and he couldn't get his senses sorted out in her proximity. She leaned over the balustrade, a cigarette hanging from her fingers as she looked out over the city. The smog-filtered light was unkind to her face. It gave her a pallid hue and painted the shadows under her eyes too dark. Too damn familiar. He'd never get past it.

He stuck close to the wall, wedged in a corner into which he was much too large to fit. He didn't trust the balcony to take his weight, either. He crossed his arms over his chest.

"What's eating you?" she asked. "Literally or figuratively, whichever."

He'd seen this one coming for a while. He'd been thinking about what to say, but it had never seemed quite the right way to go about it. He'd decided there was no such thing, anyway, and sweet words weren't his thing, either. But he owed her some tact at least.

He pushed the anger to the back of his mind, made his voice as soft as he could. "We never said, but you _know _what's causing that outbreak, don't you?"

She didn't say anything immediately and took a slow drag from her cigarette instead.

"Yeah," she said then.

"What do you think?"

"Is that a trick question?"

"No, _bullshit. _If I didn't trust you, you'd know about it," Heller said through his teeth.

She smiled faintly, but it was barely visible from where he stood.

"What do I think?" she repeated. "I have no idea. I'm serious, I don't know. But that's not the point, right? We've had the outbreak for too long, you'd not wait so long to ask me that. What _else _is eating you?"

"Mercer was here."

Surprise made her tense her shoulders and something more made her jerk her head around to stare at him from widened eyes, mouth partially open from where she had been about to take another drag.

"Is it starting?" she asked and the effort it took to quell rising panic was so obvious it changed _everything _about her, wiped any resemblance clean from her face. He had seen Mercer unsettled, but never afraid, not even at the end, not even in the taste of his memories and Dana, in that moment, was _frightened_.

"I dunno, but I don't think so," Heller said. "Not now. He said he wanted a 'truce'."

"Do you believe him?"

Heller shrugged, "I'd hoped you'd know, motherfucker's not exactly a friend."

"Not exactly a brother, either. Not anymore."

"Yeah…"

Visibly collecting herself, Dana drew on the cigarette. "I wasn't there, I don't know what he really said."

"Rambling bullshit, as always, that's what," Heller growled. Remembering the scene made his whole body itch with restrained fury. "He got to me using a shot of Whitelight."

"It still exists?" Dana asked.

"Yes, or we wouldn't be talking about it at all."

"You would have killed him," she said, it was not a question. He couldn't tell what she thought about it.

He didn't answer, couldn't think of something other than wasting breath on the obvious: even if he had been able to fight, killing Mercer needed more than a blade driven by rage, it had turned out.

"He said something about not being the apex predator and that it isn't me either. Fuck knows what he's whining about, but the fucker has a plan and it can't be good."

"Apex predator," Dana repeated as if she was trying to remember something.

"Didn't like losing," Heller observed and shrugged. "Must have bruised his fragile ego."

She glanced away from him to stare at the glowing tip of her cigarette as if she hoped to find some answer hidden away in the embers. "I'll have to look into it," she said finally. "What did you say? About the truce, I mean. What were his terms?"

"He'll leave us alone and I don't come after him," Heller said. "I agreed, but we all know it's not gonna mean anything. Gives him time and I don't like that."

"Is that what you want to do? Jump back into the fray? Bring him down for good?"

"I thought I _had," _Heller pointed out glumly. "Bitch just didn't know when to stop."

She flicked the still glowing butt away, turned around to lean with her back against the balustrade. "We can't sit on this," she said. "If there is Whitelight somewhere… Alex has access to a lab somewhere on the East Coast, not everything can have been destroyed. If the data is still somewhere….Blackwatch needs it to fight the infection."

"I'm not giving shit to Blackwatch," Heller rumbled. "All they'd do is stroke their dicks with it anyway. Fucking waste of effort."

"It comes down to what you think is worse, doesn't it?" Dana pointed out. "Blackwatch or Alex? Who do _you _want to win? It's not that hard. I know it's not for me, and I'm the one with the conflicted emotions here."

"I think no one will win this thing," he countered. "It's just all going to burn brighter, that's what I think."

She wouldn't release him from her gaze, the same fucking frosted blue again and the steely pressure she wasn't going to withdraw before she had an answer. Of course, it was easy for her to be brave, facing him, even with so much of her brother in her face, when Amaya was just a door away. He would never succumb to his monstrous side while she was there, but the _possibility _of it remained. He had been rebuilt for violence and nothing would ever change it, but Dana had never been afraid of him.

"What are you going to do?" she insisted.

Fuck if he knew.

* * *

The soldiers seemed to have adopted Altaïr as one of their own. Desmond didn't quite know when it had happened, though it was a safe guess that it would have been somewhere between killing the hunter leader and slashing through a horde of infected who had dog-piled on a desperately struggling marine. They invited him to eat with them in a corner of the dining hall tent, where the hard core of them was celebrating the mere fact of living another day, even if it was another day in a damn good imitation of hell.

Desmond had been taken into the group with similar, rough-hewn warmth. Someone had thrust a coke bottle in his hand and pulled him down in an empty chair. Still somewhat dumbfounded from what he had seen on the screens in the command centre, the laid-back attitude of the soldiers was welcome and relaxing. He felt their desperation, though, it was obvious in all of their gestures and, not least of all, in the way they took to a complete stranger, especially if that stranger had more than a few odd habits.

In only a few short hours, Altaïr had become the protector their superiors hadn't been able to be to them. It had been too long since someone — anyone — had stood up to their foes in the same way. It was a glimmer of hope, faint but it was more than they had been shown so far.

"Don't you have other super soldiers here?" Desmond asked.

"Nah," a young soldier said. They were _all _young, however, and all of them marine or army personnel. None of the Blackwatch soldiers had joined them, but perhaps it was not surprising.

"They are all up north, that's where the shit's really happening," the soldier continued. "We got a unit, a while back. Five guys?"

"Six," a woman corrected.

"Right, six. Under command of this Specialist Li. Real cocky, the bunch of them, but then they go out into the field, some recon mission no one told us grunts about and none of them come back."

"Well, Li came back," another man interjected. "Never seen a weirder girl in my life."

A low murmur of agreement went through the soldiers.

One of them took a deep gulp of his bottle, he looked at Altaïr, then Desmond. "Let me tell you how it works down here in Queenside," he said. "It's because we'll all be dead by tomorrow or the day after that, so when you want to get laid, you just march over to the person of your choosing and you _ask. _Worst that can happen they say no or maybe punch you when you catch them on a bad day, but no hard feelings either way. So Li is a pretty nice looking lady."

"Fucking gorgeous," someone said, nose deep in his glass as if he was drinking something far stronger than lemonade.

The soldiers laughed. "And that's Ryan there," the first soldier said, pointing with his bottle. "He _tried."_

Ryan looked like he would have liked to crawl in his glass, but then he shrugged and put it down. "I was feeling a bit like a douche anyway," he admitted. "It was like a week after her unit got killed? She was still on sick leave, seemed bored, you'd find her in the strangest places all over the camp. Anyway, I thought she could maybe use some cheering up? Everyone's lost someone around here. And, yeah, not gonna lie. Fucking gorgeous."

"What happened?" Desmond asked when Ryan seemed like he would just keep his silence.

Ryan took a breath, "She looks at me, doesn't even blink for, I swear, a full fucking minute. And I'm going _oh shit _in my mind, because she's a D-Code and they punch like a freight train, but she just says 'you wouldn't be able to keep up with my appetite'. And she walks off like that wasn't some creepy shit."

Ryan put his face back into his glass only to find it empty. "Fucking D-Codes, right?" He looked at Altaïr. "No offence."

Altaïr waved him off, carelessly. As the night progressed, Altaïr seemed to have relaxed and seemed now more at ease than Desmond had ever seen him. At first, Desmond had been nervous about the soldiers and that hadn't even made sense, because he had never had problems with connecting to people. He was a bar tender, he was a people person. In the end, however, he figured out it was Altaïr bleeding through his memories again, close proximity to him always made it worse. It was _Altaïr _who wasn't used to this type of easy companionship. He had always been apart from his peers, even as a child and as he made his way through the ranks of the Assassins, everyone who would have been a friend was left by the wayside.

"You know what's strange?" another marine said a while later.

"Being able to wag your ears?"

"No," the man said. "Well, that too. But you know, those infected today. Intel said there were only two dozen or so loose, but that's basically the number I killed myself, so where'd they all come from?"

"Well, our scientist," Desmond said. "She thinks it might be a new strain. It changes its victims much quicker than other strains. She didn't want to show it, but she did seem a little nervous about that."

"Sounds pretty sensible to me."

"It's kind of hard to imagine how we could be _more _fucked than we already are, but that's one of the ways."

"What do you mean by 'quicker'?" Altaïr asked.

"It's the virus," said the only woman remaining in their circle. A private named Madeline, called 'Mad' by the others, because she really didn't look much like a Madeline. "It changes people, it turns them into these things, but it takes a few hours or even days to do it."

"Exactly," Desmond agreed quickly. "But today it could only have taken one hour, or even less until they were fully converted."

"Like I said, _more fucked." _

All night, Altaïr had politely declined every coke offered to him and for the longest time, he had also refused anything but water when it was offered. This had been understood as a challenge by some of the soldiers and they had worked through a long list of beverages until everyone had been pleased when Altaïr gave in and accepted a cup of peppermint tea, although he had not taken more than a few sips. It cooled in front of him, adding an odd scent to the air.

"Are there any efforts made to fight back?" Altaïr asked.

"Not that I know," Ryan said. "I mean, there's _you. _And Li, I suppose. And we are holding the red line. Blackwatch's very into holding the red line."

"But you are not fighting back?"

"Not here," Mad said.

"Not anywhere," another soldier said. "Come on, folks, we all know how this is gonna go in the end."

"That's defeatist talk," Ryan growled.

"It's _realist_, otherwise you are just kidding yourself."

Another time, Desmond thought, the argument could have deteriorated into violence, but there weren't even different sides of it left. Everyone agreed and it had come up only as an accident, for the sake of talking at all, and borne just a little from the futile hope to be proven wrong. The night had long since reached its turning point, beginning to dip toward morning. An old night, Desmond thought, worn out to the point that even the darkness had a threadbare quality to it.

Desmond turned his gaze back to Altaïr to search in his face for some hint of what he was thinking, but as always he gave very little away. If he was tired, he showed nothing of it, if he was daunted by his task after his first encounter with the infected, he hid it too well for Desmond to discern. Perhaps it had been too easy today, even the hunter leader had slowed him down only for a moment and the few scratches it had managed to leave on him had already healed.

He remembered what Altaïr had told Salinger on the plane when she had challenged him. War-weary, that's what they all were in this place and Desmond already felt how it got to him, doomed to inaction as he was, despite the hidden blade on his wrist. He could probably hold his own against the infected, if he had no other choice, but in a real fight, he would be a liability to everyone who was fighting by his side.

In a moment when the conversation had shifted away from them, Desmond leaned a little closer to Altaïr and said, "They'll all be dead soon."

Altaïr studied him, face in shadows as if he still wore the hood of his coat. "I know what you mean," he said with a secret smile tucking on the corners of his lips. "But this is true for everyone. We are all, always, only talking to the dead."

Desmond frowned back at him. He cast a quick glance around the table to find no one was paying them any attention just then. He was caught by their faces, young and tired and diverse by the light of a single lamp. Most of the dining hall was empty this late, though there were always a few soldiers hanging around and someone held their post behind a counter, handing out rations and water for everyone stumbling back from their shift.

"Yeah, you're missing my point."

Altaïr's smile widened a little, the expression pulling at the scar. "Or you could be missing mine."

* * *

It was late when Benham finally made his way back to his bed. Like other officers, he slept — when he got around to it — in a housing container. It afforded more privacy and comfort than the tents did, but he couldn't have cared less either way. Tonight more than ever, with events of the day still running circuits in his mind.

He had invited the members of Project Thunderbolt to the command centre for one simple reason: information. And the scientist, Wyland, had not disappointed. With just a little prompting here and there, she had told him everything they knew about the new super soldier's abilities and how it exceeded everything they could expect from previous experiments.

"Even Orion?" he had asked.

"Not quite," Wyland had said. "He can't manipulate his DNA in any way, but he should be otherwise comparable."

That a new strain seemed to have emerged had also not gone unnoticed and Wyland had all but taken over their science team, wanting to get at the samples, but that's what you got from Gentek. They could never be trusted, less because they were dangerous but because they were so often so _incompetent. _Who knew what fuckup they would produce next?

This new super soldier, this man in white, for the time being he was living up to everything the original report had hinted at. It wasn't just the enhancement of any D-Code, strength enough to tear an infected apart with their bare hands, it was his fighting style, too. Benham was Blackwatch, he had at least a passing knowledge of whatever martial arts were out there, good enough to recognise something when it was put on such gory display. _This_, however, was something else entirely. The man in white had torn into the infected with so much ease, he had seemed almost careless. His preference for bladed weapons was also noteworthy, even if it was nothing but an adaption to fighting hordes of infected, better suited for close quarter combat.

And there was something deeper than mere skill. In the privacy of his mind, Benham wondered if Gentek and Abstergo and whatever eggheads they had brought in to help them screw things up, perhaps they had finally managed to create their perfect warrior. The same people, in all the ways that counted, who had made the perfect pandemic. It was probably just a question of time until their man in white freed himself from whatever leash they thought they had him on.

Benham pulled open his door and dragged inside, fingering blindly for the light switch. As the lamp flared to dip his room into clinical white, Benham froze, wide awake again from one moment to the next. Deliberately, he pushed the door closed behind him, fending off sudden, sharp panic at the back of his throat that someone would be passing by outside in exactly this moment.

His room was small, a chair and table and a narrow bed, a locker for his gear. He had never been in the habit of cluttering his space, so the room was almost empty, bare of any personality. And it was _far _to small to contain Alex Mercer in any comfortable way.

Mercer stood by the wall, facing the door with his head tilted down so his entire face was lost in perfect shadow, even with the light on. Benham had never seen Mercer as anything other predatory, as if the very power he commanded was a force that surrounded him, even when he had chosen to affect a perfectly human form and this was his original shape, if there was such a thing at all. It was an ingrained image by now and if Alex Mercer hadn't been so inherently monstrous, he would have been iconic.

Benham stood speechless. He could handle _Li, _it wouldn't be a problem if she was seen in camp, or even in his room. But this? What if someone opened the door? An emergency could happen and someone would just burst in. It wouldn't be the first time.

"What are you doing here?" Benham asked and he couldn't help that the request sounded like a demand in his shock.

"Waiting."

Benham briefly entertained the thought of asking Mercer to change into Li, but decided not to, he doubted it would go over well. He edged a step further into his own room, keeping the door at his back, for whatever good it would do.

Mercer tilted his head and watched Benham in speculative silence before he spoke again, "Do you remember why I came to you, in the beginning?"

Benham's mouth had gone dry and his mind was racing in primal fear. "I… You needed my help. You wanted me to give you Kingside."

Mercer barked a short, harsh, mirthless laugh. He came forward a step and watching him perform just that one tiny movement belied every impression that he could be driven by ordinary muscles or made of ordinary flesh and bones, everything was done too smoothly and with too much power driving it. "No," he said with a low growl in his voice. "If I wanted Kingside, I'd take it. You think they are _holding back _anything up north? No, we're just playing a game of _natural selection_, nothing more."

He put his head to the other side and this time, the light caught his face, but seemed reluctant to linger there, painting pale skin in white and too dark shadows. "You saw what they did at Vandenberg. You _saw _the length they go to to keep information out of _my_ hands. _That's_ why I need you. I can take Kingside, but no matter how fast I do it, someone'll have time to ruin _everything_ all over again. You are my in, _Terrence_, but you keep failing to deliver."

"It's not so easy," Benham said and tried his hardest not to stutter. "I can't just send an inquiry to Kingside. I shouldn't even know about this in the first place."

A new Blackwatch policy was to compartmentalise knowledge. It was no secret that no one was safe should Mercer decide they were worth the effort, so Blackwatch had began to combat it in the only way they could: no one had the full picture, except possibly Rooks himself, and so no matter who fell to Mercer's fangs and claws would be able to reveal too much. The more sensitive or vital the information was, the more scattered it had become. Blackwatch had wiped an entire base from the map just to make sure the trail was colder than cold by the time Mercer picked it up.

"You said you could get me what I want," Mercer pointed out. "If you can't then I have no use for you."

Benham felt the situation running away from him. He felt out of control, there was nothing here he could fight. He took another step forward, arms raised to beseech or appease only to freeze again as Mercer turned his head to face him directly. It was so ridiculous that he was taller than Mercer and the small room had brought them too close together.

"I need more time," Benham pleaded and it came out in a thin wail. "Please. You must see it's difficult. I'm doing everything I can. _Please. _What… what would you have if you killed me? It wouldn't help you at all!"

"I could find myself someone more competent," Mercer said and a smile still coloured his voice like razor-blades. "If you want a place in the new world, you'll have to _earn_ it."

Benham wondered if Mercer did something to his appearance, altered it in some subtle way to create this effect. Surely it wouldn't be difficult to alter his genes to make his teeth appear that little bit sharper, to allow the reddish glow to leave his eye? He wouldn't need to blink, either, or breathe and Benham was certain Mercer hadn't bothered to imitate a heartbeat.

Mercer came even closer, close enough to touch and to _take _and _consume _easily if he wanted to and Benham _did _flinch, if only in an aborted movement caught halfway between flight and freezing like a deer in the headlights. Mercer put a hand to his shoulder and pushed. It wasn't a hard shove, nothing of what it could have been, but it shifted Benham out of his way and to the side until the backs of his legs hit the edge of his bed. It meant he had to lean into Mercer's touch or risk losing his balance.

"Don't worry," Mercer said with teeth-bared, saccharine geniality. "Tackling Blackwatch is frustrating. I'm sure you'll find a way in reasonable time. The end is inevitable, General. It's just a question of _who_ goes down in ashes before. We'll speak again soon."

Mercer let go of his shoulder, leaving an odd patch of cold on his shoulder, an imprint of his touch that felt as if Benham had been rendered naked and utterly exposed to the world, stranded and weaponless.

Mercer was leaving, heading for the door and his body shivered and changed, tissue writhing into Specialist Li's less conspicuous and markedly more pleasant form.

"Wait," Benham forced out, despite his better judgement. He knew well enough his credit was being counted down rapidly, putting more strain on it wouldn't be wise.

Mercer stopped, tilted his — _Li's — _head back at him. "What?" Either he had halted the transformation midway, or had intentionally left his voice unchanged for the gravelly, low animal snarl spilling past Li's red lips.

"What about the man in white? What do I do with him?"

"Get rid of him," Mercer said. "I don't want to have to deal with him."

"But it's…" Benham began and thought better of it. "I'll find a way. I'll take it Li won't be there to train him?"

"No, I won't."

He waited for another moment for Benham to say anything else, to dig his grave that much deeper, but Benham said nothing more, courage all spent and unwilling to gamble away he last shred of hope for a future he still had.

* * *

The girl called Mad fisted her calloused fingers into the tough material of his shirt and pushed him down into the chair, she climbed after him, wrapping her muscular thighs on either side of him, heedless of how the chair had buckled under his weight alone. Though, in all fairness, she was not a _girl, _she was a soldier despite her apparent youth. A grown woman, then, more than able to express what she wanted.

The women in this place, they all were remarkable. Soldiers and scholars, Assassins and Templar, but not one of them seemed abject, holding their place in the world in a way he couldn't have imagined. It was one of the few promising things he had seen in this world of the future, a hint the Apple was not lying to him in some subtle way. It couldn't have picked this from his mind, but perhaps it was something he _should _have wanted, purporting to fight in the name of freedom as he had.

Perhaps sensing his momentary distraction, Mad shifted her grip from his shirt to wrap around his neck and tilt his head back and claim his mouth with her soft lips and her supple tongue. She tasted too sweet, from the strange chemical drink the soldiers seemed to prefer, but he was far more amendable to it now than he had been earlier. It fit her, somehow, like the scent of weapons' oil clinging to her hair and the hints of blood and sweat from her clothes and the skin beneath.

But he was becoming tired of trysts like this. It was always against some rough back alley wall, or, like now, the insubstantial privacy of a storage room. Always time would already be running away from him, because some guard patrol would come around the corner or some dai yammered outside his door about bringing a stranger back to the bureau. He wanted a bed, space to move and real light by which to see her face and body. He wanted to be surrounded by solid walls, not feeble canvas so neither of them would have to stifle every sound for fear of discovery. He wanted _time _and leisure, not just a few minutes of artless thrusting, just enough to release, not enough to satisfy.

He freed his mouth from her, but brushed her lips as he said, "The chair will break."

It made her laugh and sling her legs tighter around him and the back of the chair, grinding down in his lap. _Hunger, _he had called it to Desmond and the soldiers were amazingly straightforward about these things. Mad had surprised him.

It was, however, only ever a question of the flimsy chair or the dirty floor or a bunk bed in a tent with twenty others. There wasn't going to be _leisure, _either, just hasty fingers tearing away at clothing. He left her to fiddle with the clasp mechanism of his spidersilk shirt, cursing under her breath as she did, and worked the infinitely easier buttons and zipper of her overall open to slide his hands underneath. Her skin was hot, surprisingly soft above the grooves of undulating and defined muscles.

"I want this _off_!" she hissed, tugging on the shirt. "Fucking high tech combat gear!"

Smirking, he kissed her and although he lost the smirk quickly, he didn't stop kissing her before he felt her body melt into his. He snaked his hand up, traced her arching spine with his fingertips. Her mouth was too hot and too responsive, it was too easy to be carried away, plunge into pure sensation and drown in it. Something he understood at least, not unlike fighting today, but even the fight had been strange, too, foreign. He was unused to fighting something that was simultaneously human and beast. He was still the same and there was nothing in the world he could not kill, but it had been widely different than fighting and killing normal men.

This woman, though, despite her odd clothes and the peculiar taste of her mouth, she was undeniably familiar. The feminine curve of her body as she leaned into him. The same pressure of her lips and the answering movement of her tongue, sliding thickly against his. He made it last, wanting to go on far more than he wanted to breathe.

At some point, Mad had completely forgotten her annoyance at the clasps, instead she had gone back to clenching the material of the shirt in her fingers, only pulling subconsciously on the fabric. She made a low whine in her throat when he eventually pulled back, dragging her tongue with him between pursed lips.

Finally, released for the moment, she gave him a wide, upward grin. He pushed her back a little, giving him some room to undo the clasps of his shirt himself. They gave a low, metallic click as the mechanism opened and her gaze flickered down briefly.

Mad gave him a wicked, upward grin and said, "You fight like the devil and you kiss like sin. I _really_ like it."

When the chair finally did give way, it was because they were both shuffling around, divesting themselves of the rest of their clothes and it wasn't quite so easy, trousers getting caught on boots and fingers too eager not to break contact with heating skin. Altaïr put his hands around Mad's bared waist and pulled them both to the floor and onto their knees, facing each other.

They kissed again and Mad caught his left hand and pulled it up between them, sucking two fingers into her mouth without completely breaking the kiss. Messily, wet, they both suckled on his fingers until he settled a harder grip on her waist and dragged her against him, freed his fingers from her mouth to slip and then curl them into her body below.

Mad rocked into him, moaning and mewling, driving herself to her own quickening rhythm and fell forward, hands clawing at his skin. She sank her teeth into his shoulder instead of crying out as she came around his fingers, soaking his hand. "Do that again," she panted into his ear while her body still shuddered involuntarily around him.

"No," Altaïr whispered roughly and the need was all there in his voice. "Something better."

He splayed her legs on either side of his hips, open and wet and sensitive, making her whimper and quake and rake her nails down his back as he sank into her.

* * *

Heller still slept sometimes, because — surprisingly — some part of him was still human. He needed rest, even if it was considerably less than he would have done and he knew he could have gone for days without, provided he found enough nourishment and motivation to do it. But sleep was an unwelcoming void to him, when his brain refused to follow his command and dove into memories arbitrarily. He never knew _what _would be pushed to the surface while he slept and there were too many beasts in him, too much of _Mercer _to trust himself with it. At least it now made sense that Mercer's memories should feel different to all the others, if he had somehow managed to safeguard a part of himself even as he was consumed. Heller couldn't trust himself to sleep.

He spent nights on the couch, once again with the television as his only, garish companion. The volume was muted, so as not to disturb Maya or Dana and he didn't really pay attention to what was happening on the screen. It was a way to distract from what went on in his head, a momentary relief without the danger of losing control.

He heard the low creak of the bed and the quiet footsteps of bare feet in the hallway. By the time Dana slipped into the room, Heller had already sat up and turned to look at the door.

The light from the television danced over her face, coloured and white and her eyes were large and terrified as she looked at him.

"I think I know what Alex is after," she said.

* * *

_End of Chapter 8_

* * *

**Author's Note:** Believe it or not, but I contemplated actually having Li in that scene with Altaïr instead of a random marine. The reason I didn't do it is probably not what you think. It would likely change the relationship Alex and Altaïr will have later on (even if Altaïr doesn't know, I would know and Alex would) , but mostly, it'd contradict an important (not sex related) part of Alex's characterisation.

Also, the thought sex and Alex squicks me out. I may challenge myself in the future, but probably not in this fic.


	9. Safety and Peace

**9. Safety and Peace**

Haunted by nightmares, her body still following the rhythem of a different timezone, Lucy spent the night uselessly tossing from one side to the other, too tired to just get up and do something, but equally unable to find true rest. The Red Zone was in her thoughts, not just a name, but an actual description with its ghastly growth. Nor could she stop herself from recounting the fight in the camp.

There was Altaïr and the cold efficiency with which he had taken on the infected, but also the many soldiers and the shocking, quickly increasing number of hideously deformed infected as they tore through the camp. When Benham had finally thrown them from the command centre, they still hadn't had the exact numbers of casualties, partly due to the chaos, but also because infected would sometimes eat their victims, leaving only scattered body parts behind for the clean-up teams to pick through and reassemble for identification or at least a proper tally.

Desmond had come back well after midnight without Altaïr. When asked, Desmond had only given her a toothy grin and shrugged, throwing himself fully clothed and face first on his bed, leaving her alone with any further questions. She supposed Altaïr could take care of himself, better than she had dared to hope in what would be such a strange world and Desmond's utter lack of worry reassured her, too.

At some point, she must have fallen asleep after all, because when she finally admitted defeat and sat up, Altaïr was in his bed and the light crawling through the tent was pale from a low early morning sun. Still bleary-eyed and feeling vaguely hungover from the jet-lag, Lucy picked up her watch from the bedside table. Staring at the watch until it started to make sense, Lucy picked herself out of bed. She could grab a quick breakfast before heading out; she was too early for the meet, but it couldn't hurt to get a better grasp of her surrounding.

She glanced around the tent at the others. Both Wyland and Desmond had wrapped themselves tightly into their respective blankets, not even a hair was visible, leaving them nothing but an untidy pile of military issue bed-linen. She was glad Wyland wouldn't be getting in her way, but she briefly considered waking Desmond and invite him along. It could be useful if he started being treated like an Assassin, whether he wanted to be one or not.

Altaïr sprawled as if the narrow bed was far too small for him, one arm thrown over his head and leaning a dent into the tent canvas. Even at rest, Altaïr had an air of controlled deadliness, a tension in the long lines of his body, a readiness to spring into action in the blink of an eye. Only the steady and slow rise and fall of his chest confirmed he was indeed sleeping.

Lucy padded to her footlocker and pushed it open carefully, so as not to wake the others. By the time she stood back up, a bundle of clothes in her hand, Altaïr was watching her attentively.

He had sat up on the bed, cross-legged and left the blanket to pool around his hips, all her assumptions come true in this instant. He seemed perfectly awake, as if he had sat there, watching her, for an hour already and she had only failed to notice.

"Where are you going?" he asked quietly, voice too low for her to interpret his tone.

"Bathroom," she said. She didn't know why she felt caught, why his sudden scrutiny would leave her anxious.

A tiny smile crossed his face and was gone before he said, "After that."

Lucy glanced in Wyland's general direction even though she had no reason to suspect the scientist had woken, but even with Wyland out of the picture, they were likely under some form of surveillance. The gimmicks Shaun and Rebecca had cooked up had been tailored to combat Abstergo's tech, she had no idea what Blackwatch had installed.

"I need to meet someone," she said.

"Friends?" he asked.

She hesitated again, "I don't know if it's safe to talk."

Altaïr considered her answer, silently looking back at her with his face perfectly neutral. After a moment, his gaze wandered away from her, travelled the edge of the roof and the darker corners of the tent, but whether he really expected to spot anything, Lucy couldn't tell.

"I see," he said and bent his head a little in acknowledgement as his gaze returned to her. "Do you need help?"

"It's not dangerous," she said. "I'll be back in two hours or so."

"As you say, but be careful. The incursion yesterday was no coincidence. Who knows what else will happen, now that we are here."

"You think this was a set up?" Lucy asked. "By whom? Blackwatch?"

"It is possible, perhaps even likely. Blackwatch wanted to test me and it is only a true test if it is not controlled. The soldiers here — the _normal _soldiers — they fear Blackwatch almost as much as the plague. But what I meant was the camps are not safe. You should not think of them as such."

It was hard to read in his face, distorted by diffuse light and vestiges of sleep still clinging to her, but he seemed oddly alert, more than he needed to be among allies.

"I can take care of myself," she said with a smile. "But thank you."

Altaïr nodded, but his gaze held her in place for the moment and he said, "Is there somewhere we can talk?"

"I guess we could have breakfast," Lucy offered. "Better than here, at least."

He nodded, stretching his arms out over his head before he laid back down to wait.

Ten minutes later, when Lucy returned, both Desmond and Wyland were awake as well. Desmond proclaimed he would join them, though the term 'rise and shine' had utterly passed him by. He was still suffering from his bruised ribs and wrist, not to mention that he was unlikely to have slept much better than Lucy herself.

Thankfully, Wyland had no interest in joining them, she preferred to head over to the Blackwatch scientists' mobile lab, something or other about the new strains. Altaïr should meet her there later so she could test his blood for signs of mutation, but other than that, she had no interest in what everyone did.

The camp was busy around them, many heading for the dining hall alongside them. Some of the soldiers greeted Altaïr, but otherwise kept their distance.

"What is it you wanted to talk about?" Lucy asked. _Safe _was a relative term. Bugs could be anywhere, but while Lucy was fairly sure the Templars would have liked to keep them under surveillance, but this show was ran by Blackwatch and Blackwatch had its hands full and wouldn't have bugged any random tent. Hopefully.

"General Benham," Altaïr began. "He is not an ally."

"What do you mean?"

"I am not sure."

Desmond added, "Something's off about the guy. Even I can tell."

"But what does it _mean," _Lucy insisted. "Not an ally of the Assassins? We knew that one. Blackwatch is a difficult organisation, they aren't the good guys."

"No, what I mean is, he is not loyal," Altaïr said slowly, picking his words carefully, looking for the right way to say it. "It is difficult to describe. I doubt his allegiance lies wholly with Blackwatch."

Lucy snorted. "With who else? Who's there?" She made a vague gesture with her hand, encompassing not only the camp around them, but the entire continent and the state it was in. In a time when even Assassins and Templars found it necessary to lay to rest millennia of warfare, there was just one side left to be on. Oh, there were fractions, disagreements over strategy and personal vendettas running in the undercurrent of the one great struggle. But there was no other options else left.

"Indeed," Altaïr agreed pointedly. "Who is there?"

* * *

Altaïr's words wouldn't leave her alone as she finally left the dining hall and made her way to the gate leading to one of the survivors' camps. Even though she had spent so much time working with Desmond and the Animus, she was still not quite certain how much weight she should place on Altaïr's perception. The Animus software, which was almost as much a work of Those Who Came Before as the Animus itself, seemed to have no trouble with it, translating it into the colours of Eagle Vision as if it was always meant to be that way. It didn't seem to work in the same way for Altaïr, there were no colours for him, just _knowledge_, vague perhaps, but much less ambiguous than mere instinct.

Just because she didn't understand something, didn't mean she could afford to dismiss it out of hand. Far from it, in fact. Looking at things armed with this new insight, they even made a terrible kind of sense. The fact that Queenside was so comparatively peaceful, why there was so little pressure against the Red Border. It made sense that Benham had actually _wanted _them in his command centre, the heart of all military operations, during the incident in the camp. He _had _given them all the information they asked of him, and none of them had thought to reject him when he had offered questions of his own. And the incident itself, which had so obviously been timed to hit right after their arrival, she had assumed it to be a test by Blackwatch, but in the end, perhaps Blackwatch wasn't the only interested party.

She hadn't considered the possibility that someone would choose the _other _side in this war.

Security was tight around the gate, but she Ramsey had given her an ID card yesterday, hung loosing around her neck and the soldiers on watch didn't challenge her right to go where she wanted.

She picked her way along the failing grid of tents and narrowing avenues between the growing, deteriorating slum of the survivors' camp. She had expected more people to be about, but there was little actual movement. Here and there, a few people were sitting around in chairs outside their makeshift doors, others passed her by sometimes and off to the side, a group of children were playing. Other than that, she only _sensed _the pressure of people from beyond the canvas walls, waiting for something that would change anything at all.

Soldier patrolled everywhere, but whether they were only delegated here because of yesterday's incident or whether Blackwatch was keeping such a tight watch on the camps, Lucy couldn't tell for sure.

Curious, Lucy kept her eyes open for the surveillance cameras and viral detectors. The tall poles were spread out evenly around the camp, proclaiming a sense of security that had been proven false just a day ago. Whether as test by Blackwatch or as test by their enemy, but the people housed in the camps had been used and sacrificed either way.

At some point, she didn't walk alone anymore. She glanced to her side and found a tall man by her side, dressed like most of the civilians in clothes that looked like they had worn them the day they started running. He matched her gait and bearing, casually careless. The cameras would pick them up, but unless someone was looking for them specifically, they might get lost in abundance of footage.

"I'm Zack," he said.

"Lucy."

Trust was a hard thing to come by, perhaps today even more so than yesterday. She had never met him before, but they had spoken before, albeit briefly, through the communication lines of a prostitute's bedroom.

Zack said nothing more, but he steered her away from the gate and deeper into the camp, where the once orderly setup of the tents had fallen apart entirely, creating a maze of narrow alleys, crooked buildings and people with vacant eyes. An old blanket hung over a clothesline between two shacks and Zack ducked through under it, holding the blanket aside for her. Behind, tents and a rusty cargo container edged out an open space between them, dominated by a barbecue grill and a table with several chairs.

"It's not pretty, but it's home," Zack said. "After a fashion."

"You live here?" she asked.

Zack grinned, "I prefer to be a moving target, but this week, yes. Have a seat."

Lucy pulled a chair and settled herself, watching as Zack did the same, meeting her gaze across the table.

"We've heard from William," he began. "It's still all good across the pond. He thinks they'll have at least another week before Abstergo cuts them out of the loop completely."

"Abstergo will keep their end of the bargain," Lucy said.

"Yeah, question is how long," Zack seemed unimpressed. "Never mind, so what happened yesterday? News around here, well, it's not reliable. Word of mouth, mostly and a one-line official statement. They quarantined one of the camps. Do you know anything more?"

"A little, it's a good chance infected were released in the camp to test Altaïr."

Zack said nothing for a moment and when he spoke again, his eyes were suddenly wide, "So, he's really here? It worked?"

"It worked," Lucy nodded. "But I don't know how long it'll last."

"The others and I… we were wondering if we could meet him?" Zack asked, but didn't give her the chance to answer, "Yes, I know, only if it's safe and all, but still… Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad!"

Lucy said nothing. Before they had woken him, she had tried to cling to the idea that Altaïr was nothing but a clone and not the real man at all. He was not the one who wrote the Codex and changed the very foundation of the order. He was a copy. But it was becoming increasingly difficult to remind herself of it, in the face of the reality of him. It seemed like she was selling him short, all versions of him, if she denied him all claim on his own history.

"I'll see what I can do," Lucy said finally. "How many people do you have?"

"Around here? Five, but we could scrape together maybe fifty across the continent. And there are some cells we haven't heard from, maybe they just declared radio silence as a precaution and will show up again, maybe they got caught in some crossfire or other."

"Only five?"

"We fell back from the front-lines before the wall was established. Seemed safer that way and there wasn't a whole lot we could do. Like I said, fifty-three in all, including me, not counting you and your team. We'd need at least three days to gather, however. I'd get maybe ten-ish in a day. If you need the backup, those are the timeframes."

"We are fairly secure at the moment, but I don't know what'll happen once William makes his move, could you be on standby for that?"

"Absolutely. We have a few quick escape routes planned that'll kick in once you're past the military zones and a couple of bolt-holes for after. It's pretty short-term, mind you, but we are professionals."

Lucy thought for a moment. "There is something else that bothers me."

"Shoot."

"Abstergo is noticeably absent from our operations. I know Vidic is busy with Thunderstorm, but I just can't see them hand over everything to Blackwatch, no matter how bad their bargaining position."

"You think there is someone keeping tabs on you?" Zack asked. "What was that bit about Abstergo keeping their word?"

"Keep their word, not be completely stupid. They'd want to keep their fingers in this, but they didn't even sent anyone with us. Just me, actually, and I don't think I still count in their eyes."

"We haven't had much Templar activity since the mess's started," Zack said. "My guess is they are keeping their heads down as much as we do, but if they're here for you, they'll likely be hanging around the camps, too. Haven't seen anything unusual, but we'll be on the lookout."

"Thank you," Lucy said and began to rise. "I'll be in touch in six days. Send my regards to William. Tell him to be careful."

"Like he'll listen," Zack snorted. "But will do."

But he kept looking at her in a way that made her stay and look back at him to see the deep rings under his eyes and the tired frown on his forehead. "Is it working?" he asked, almost the same question as in the beginning, but this time with an undercurrent of pleading.

"Are you asking if Altaïr can defeat Zeus?"

"I think I am," Zack shook his head. "Provided that even means an end to the infection. It's been bad here, I mean really really bad. There isn't much of a government anymore, health services are about to collapse and food and water, yeah… it's like that."

It took her too long to find her voice, too long to make sense of her own feelings, but it occurred to her that she couldn't lie to him the way she lied to Desmond and even Altaïr and William, because it was important to keep up appearances, because otherwise she would just lay down and wait for death.

"I don't think Altaïr can defeat Zeus," she said and her voice sounded strange in her own ears. The last truth, to one they could not outwit.

"That's what I thought."

Zack visibly pulled himself together, plastered something close to a smile on his weathered face and said, "Tell Altaïr… tell him it's good we've got him with us. Final fight and all and… no, wait, don't tell him that."

She waited, sensing the space he needed.

"Tell him _safety and peace_ from what's left of the Assassins, best I can wish anyone."

* * *

Doomed, for the moment, to inactivity, Lucy found too much time to ponder things. Without the D-Code trainer, Altaïr had to resign himself to what amounted to playacting for the soldiers who had taken an interest in learning swordplay after his performance had shown how effective they could be against infected. If it grated on his nerves as much as on Lucy's own, he didn't show it.

Days went by while Lucy and Desmond worked out their jet-lag and got used to the rhythm of the military camp, learned the people and their haunts, talked with too many of them and found they all shared the same nearly debilitating fear about what the future might hold.

Salinger was little in evidence during those days, hanging around the command centre and voicing her mounting displeasure at Specialist Li's continued absence. Something was definitely amiss, but Salinger wasn't forthcoming about it to either Lucy or Desmond.

This day, Lucy found Desmond seated on an upturned crate at the edge of a makeshift training ring, talking to a visibly uneasy Private Ramsey.

"What really happened?" Private Ramsey was saying when she joined them.

"That's what I said," Desmond agreed. He greeted Lucy with the quick flash of a grin.

"Well…" Ramsey began. "It looks like we've had a malfunction in the viral detectors that shouldn't have been there."

"I gather."

"It's, like, uh," Ramsay said and stopped himself. "It's like this: we double and triple check them, you know, they've got redundant systems and all. They are practically failsafe."

"Except when they aren't," Desmond added. He wasn't feeling very charitable today and he was taking it out on the poor Private, who deserved his ire much less than, say, Salinger whose absence annoyed him. Without her, they were mostly cut out of the loop. Desmond figured it was because they were waiting for this Li person, because no one else would be much use as a sparring partner, but still. All that talk of pressure and time constraints and now they seemed to be all set to wait around a lot. Was that what they called military efficiency?

"Except when they aren't," Ramsey agreed with only a shade of irony. "We've recently made a firmware update, but it was rolled back the day before you arrived, so the detectors weren't working as they should."

"But the old version should have been almost as safe, shouldn't it?" Lucy asked. "There were no massive outbreaks in the camps around Queenside, were there?"

Ramsey hung his shoulders and spread his arms in a gesture of helplessness. "Shouldn't have happened, you're right. But happened. Pretty big damn fuckup, too. Leader hunters are a pain to kill. If you hadn't been there, this could've gone sideways pretty quickly."

Desmond wondered briefly whether it'd even make sense to point out the obvious. What would he gain from it? His thoughts were mirrored in Lucy's face and he said, "A little too lucky for it to be just luck, don't you think?"

At least Ramsey understood immediately what Desmond was getting at. "I don't know, really. I know what you mean, but I can only tell you what the General tells me."

"Does he tell you about when Li will show up?" Lucy asked.

"Everything Li does is off the record," Ramsey said. "I have no idea."

"Is that normal for D-Codes?" Desmond asked.

It made Ramsey fidget a little, trying to look for a good lie when he had already missed his timing. "Not as such, but… they usually do their own thing, so it's not too weird either."

In the ring, Altaïr took a slow step back, avoiding a sluggish sweep by the soldier currently sparring with him. The soldier tried to push forward and even Desmond could see he was holding his sword too high, giving him no defensive option at all, not with a strange weapon and no experience. Altaïr stepped back again. What he _wanted _to achieve with the manoeuvre was to give his pupil a chance to change his tactic, but instead, the man raised his sword even higher and attacked in a stroke meant to hack down between Altaïr's shoulder and neck.

Altaïr did a fluid half-turn and stepped in toward his opponent, letting the strike slice uselessly through the air in front of his chest. Rather than bring up his own sword, Altaïr lunged for the soldier's wrist, held and turned, slipping his grip up to the hilt and twisted the sword free of the soldiers hold.

The soldier, more surprised than anything stared up at Altaïr wide-eyed. The Assassin said something that Desmond was too far away to hear and some of the onlookers cheered. Altaïr handed both swords back to the soldier and strode over to them.

"Why," Altaïr said, more to himself. "Do they all wave their sword around on eye-level?"

Lucy chuckled while Desmond took a moment to figure out the problem, too caught up in Altaïr's way of thinking. Fighting was an art to him, but it was also instinct, something intrinsic at which he had always been good. Altaïr's puzzlement echoed in Desmond through the connection of blood and memories.

"I think they've seen too many movies," Desmond said.

"Where did you get the swords?" Ramsey asked.

"They seem to have been stored in a crate and forgotten," Altaïr replied. "The quartermaster said we could have them."

"He just hands out swords?" Lucy inquired.

"Would you argue with Altaïr?" Desmond asked back. "And his adoring fans?"

It earned him a frown from Altaïr and another laugh from Lucy.

"Has there been any news?" Altaïr asked, fixing at Ramsey until the man fidgeted again, before he remembered his training and straightened.

"I'm afraid not, sir," Ramsey said.

Altaïr stepped past him and sat down on the crate by Desmond's side. "This is becoming strange," he observed. "You brought me here for a single purpose, but you are keeping me from it. How long will this continue?"

Ramsey made a helpless gesture, having no other answer to give.

And momentarily lost, Desmond didn't know if he shared Altaïr's impatience or if it wasn't far more reasonable to hope the confrontation would never come. Life in the camp was a strange thing, right at the front with certain doom just on the other side of a wall, but casual levity and easy companionship on the other. You never _forgot _where you were and _why, _but you sometimes forgot to care. At least Desmond did, settling into this new routine much better than he had expected, partly because, if nothing else, at least he was freed from Abstergo and the Animus.

Ramsey left, glad to escape further questioning and Lucy asked if they wanted to have a coffee with her. Or water, as the case would be, because Altaïr still didn't quite trust most of the food and drink and didn't like much of what he got talked into trying.

He liked Altaïr, now that he finally got to meet him, even if he had a habit of being obstinate when some aspect of modernity irritated him, or even just because he was bored or it suited him.

Ye, it all was running on borrowed time, eventually the Red Border would break, or the soldiers would. At some future point, Blackwatch would become unable to sustain this attrition warfare.

Altaïr was right, even for the gruesome fate awaiting him, but for now, they had these moments of peace, it was always better to enjoy them while they lasted, than to grieve their wasted potential later.

* * *

_End of Chapter 9_

* * *

**Author's Note:** Because I kinda hate this chapter and am afraid everyone else will, here is something I don't normally do. I'll tell you what happens next: Altair and Alex are going to finally meet!


	10. A Taste for Chaos

**10. A Taste for Chaos**

* * *

Zack's new haunt was located in the same messy conglomeration of tents and shacks, but in a different corner of the sprawling survivor's camp. He looked like he hadn't slept since the first time she had seen him as he led her into the tent.

"William says he'll kick off his plan tomorrow at 2am local time, that's eight in the evening here, we'll be ready by then. I can give you nine people, three of them master assassins and the others are well trained and will hold their own."

Lucy took a deep breath, looking back at him. "I don't agree with William's plan."

"I know," Zack said. "_He _knows, but there are compromises he won't make." He shook his his head and sat down in a chair. "I have no idea. Honestly? I'm just glad I don't have to make that decision."

Lucy said nothing for a moment. William wanted to sabotage Thunderstorm, erase all the recordings of Altaïr's memories still stored at Abstergo to make it impossible for them to create other clones. She understood William's reasoning, his desire to back out while there was still time, before some inexcusable sin had been committed. But for Lucy, pulling out was the greater sin. It rendered what they had already done to Altaïr worthless, when alone he couldn't stand against Zeus at all.

At the same time, she realised, better then William, just how impossible an army would have been. Even out of his depth, Altaïr made his own choices and went his own way. They couldn't just take and aim him at their enemy. Desmond had been right, in the very beginning, when he had warned them of what Altaïr would do if he felt he was being used.

"What about the Abstergo personnel?" she asked.

Zack snorted in a mirthless laugh. "God, yes. Hard as fuck to track these guys. A group of them pitched their tents, probably have been here since we were, but they never show their face. They get food rations delivered to them and everyone unfortunate enough to be living near them doesn't like talking about them. Locals think they are secret agents of some kind. There are rumours about experiments in the camps, the like. I got someone watching them at all times. Fuckers don't make a move without us knowing about it."

"We don't know if they can even get to us," Lucy said. "It's just a precaution."

"Yeah, I get it. Not my first dance."

Zack got up and pulled a laptop from his bag. "There is something else," he said. "This was passed down to me from the cell in Frisco."

He flipped open the laptop. "There is a hacker proclaiming she has information about Zeus and about Whitelight, but she doesn't want to contact Blackwatch."

Lucy scrolled through the blog posts Zack had downloaded to his computer, skimming through the text.

"Is she for real?" Lucy asked. "This information seems extremely sensitive."

"It does, doesn't it," Zack said. "Athena was active during the second outbreak and she might or might have been around during the first, or even before that. Some of our computer people say she's good, so I'm inclined to give it a shot. Thing is, Athena has been silent since the second outbreak ended, everyone assumed she had died, or at least been incarcerated and buried where we'd never find her. This, well, looks more like she was in hiding."

"Or it's a trap," Lucy said. "Someone's impersonating her."

"But for whom?" Zack asked. "The only thing I can think is Blackwatch trying to lure out rogue elements, but it doesn't seem their style. Why go to such length?"

"You think she's legit," Lucy observed. Her attention was drawn back to the screen, to the guarded, but present promise of a cure. As the only effective weapon not only against the infected hordes but against Mercer himself, it would change the game.

"Whitelight," she said, almost more to herself. "If we had it… this would be a much shorter war."

"That's my thought. It's a bit strange that she doesn't want to deal with Blackwatch. If someone could use this stuff, it'd be them."

"It seems she's got a history with them," Lucy said. "Not a good one, I guess. Besides, who knows what other agendas Blackwatch has. I wouldn't trust them further than I can throw one of their tanks. I can't blame anyone for not trusting them, either."

She smiled at Zack until he remembered to smile back. She said, "Well, last time I heard, the Assassins were much more trustworthy than these other guys. Let's make contact with Athena and see what she really has."

* * *

Rooks frowned, an expression that came through the wavering satellite connection completely untarnished. Benham endured his stare stiffly, hands clasped behind his back, shoulders pulled tense and body straight. He had known this conversation was coming for a long time and while he had not been looking forward to it, his life was filled with unpleasant responsibilities and this was a minor one, all things compared.

Benham said, "We've assigned him the call-sign 'Periphas' and are currently looking for ways to test his abilities properly."

"Yes," Rooks agreed. "Without Li, that is. Have you heard from her, yet?"

"We've lost contact with Li five days ago, sir, but she…"

Benham knew Salinger had filed a complaint and he felt her scrutiny from across the command centre now. He vaguely wished he could have redirected Rooks' call to his office, but he always conducted his talks with Rooks here, any deviation from the norm would have made it feel like a defeat and Benham wasn't ready to just take it. Salinger didn't understand the first thing of what was going on around her. Her ignorance was her own failing and it would be her eventual undoing; until then, he just had to deal with her.

"What's she doing anyway?" Rooks interrupted.

"Scouting," Benham said. "We suspect large groups of infected have gone into hiding underground. Our flyovers revealed only a few stragglers. We don't want them to gear up on our walls unexpectedly."

"I can't recommend it, I should show your Kingside someday," Rooks said, deadly serious despite the quip.

"I can do without," Benham said. He broke his stiff posture and used the freedom it gave him to gesture with his hands, dismissing Rooks' concerns. "Li's behaviour has been somewhat erratic recently, but I find her most useful when left to do her own thing. Her current absence is unfortunate, but as you know, I wasn't informed about Thunderbolt in time to make sure she didn't head out."

"If Li remains MIA, find some other way to test Periphas. Abstergo is waiting for the go-ahead from us, they aren't doing this stuff for cheap, so I want to know what we are buying. I expect…ah."

Rooks' attention had shifted away from Benham and fixed on something behind his right shoulder. It gave Benham the moment of warning before Li stepped to his side, closeness and distance seemingly carefully calculated not to set Rooks off and still unsettle Benham. To this day, he didn't know if Mercer merely echoed Li's original and admittedly vexing mannerism or if he enjoyed toying with him. Perhaps a bit of both, at that.

Li saluted curtly, no indication of playfulness this time, no disrespecting sloppiness. "I apologise, sir," she said and even Benham heard no trace of dishonesty in her tone.

Rooks seemed to think for a moment, then he looked back at Benham.

"Get things moving," Rooks said. "Keep me in the loop this time, Abstergo's waiting and if it's the magic weapon, I'd want it sooner rather than later. Kingside out."

The screen went black and Benham allowed himself a moment of private collection before he turned on his heels to face Li. "Why are you here?"

"I'm saving your ass, obviously," Li pointed out. "Come on, I've changed my mind."

Salinger joined them, but Benham gave her no chance to say anything. "I suggest we don't delay further, go ahead, we'll join you in a moment." he said.

He could tell Salinger obviously had a mind to argue, but she had enough discipline left to merely nod and march out.

Li walked a small half-circle around Benham until she stood right in front of him.

"What do you plan?" Benham asked.

"Since you have been unable to get rid of this super soldier, I'm finding a way to make him useful," Li said. "You people, how long since you got a good look at me? Officially, that is. Three months? Four? Once your _Periphas _is released, he'll have nothing to fight, unless 'someone' sets him on the right path. I'm thinking Gentek in New York."

"That's the obvious one," Benham agreed, knowing about some of Salinger's long-term plans to either lure or flush out Mercer.

"But going to New York from here makes no sense, too far, too dangerous," Li continued. "I'm sure any excursion into the Red Zone should kick off in Kingside and we finally have what you failed to provide: a reason to get Li into Kingside."

"But what about their viral detectors?"

"That's where you really shouldn't fuck up," Li said. She pulled something from her pocket and held out to Benham. It was a usb stick. He picked it up and stashed it in his own pocket. Smirking, Li said, "It's a _virus_. Send it to Kingside, use the failure of your detectors as a reason or whatever, make something up. All test runs will work perfectly, the only thing this _won't _notice is me."

While Benham still considered the implications of the plan, Li had already turned away and made for the door without looking back to make sure Benham was following.

If it was as easy as introducing a computer virus into Kingside's systems, Mercer would have done it months ago. It was possible the computer virus hadn't been ready before and the recent mess in the survivor's camp had given him an opportunity to slip it in. More than likely, however, it was nothing but an attempt, risky only for Benham to whom it would be traced when Kingside realised what he had send them.

Benham knew Mercer wanted into Kingside more than anything else, looking for information that Blackwatch had done its best to purge. The thing Benham had never said aloud was that he wasn't even sure if anyone in Kingside had what Mercer wanted. It seemed too obvious, too easy to be tracked to that place. And perhaps Mercer knew as much, but he had no other place to start. All he needed, after all, was one fleeting thought, enough to begin to unravel the secrets once again.

Benham tried not to think of what would happen then and what new horrors there would be.

He was growing weary of waiting for Mercer's new world, however free of all this suffering it was promised to be. It had been too long already, he had to wait for so long and still nothing seemed forthcoming. He had pledged himself to Mercer, despite all he knew — or because of it, but what if in the end, he would find he had nothing? That he had betrayed Blackwatch and the whole _fucking human race _for nothing at all because Mercer would never follow up on his promise. Mercer had been burned, once, after all, elevating the wrong man and suffering a humiliating defeat for it. Benham knew of no other ally Mercer had Evolved since then, just promises, just _words_, too easily broken.

Benham understood all about betrayal, after all.

* * *

Specialist Li. Desmond wasn't entirely sure what he had expected and how she lived up to it, now that she sauntered into view at the edge of the training ring.

He had read up on the super soldiers, at least as far as his patchy scientific understanding went, and no doubt a handful of very essential information had been excluded from the files he had been given. The first contingent of D-Codes had developed massive muscles and the treatment took hold only on a select few soldiers with very specific genetic makeup. Later, the variant of the virus had been fine-tuned, causing a more elegant change, increasing the density of bones and muscles, closer to Mercer in many uncomfortable ways.

Li was quite small, especially compared to Benham who had tendency to tower anyway. She had a boxer's figure, both femininely curved and muscled as befitting a D-Code soldier. Mixed ethnicity had left her with exotic, yet familiar features and sharp, dark almond eyes. There was something remarkably powerful in her gait and posture.

News of Li's arrival must have spread through the camp like wildfire and those soldiers off-duty had found an excuse to wander by the training ring and had begun to linger around its perimeter. Even Wyland had appeared on the other side of the ring with several other people who lacked not only the uniforms but also the bearing of soldiers; other scientists, Blackwatch and a few remnant Gentek people taken into the fold. Wyland gave a wave in Desmond's general direction, but move over to join them.

"What do you think?" Desmond asked Altaïr, who sat by his side in a plastic lawn chair, looking sleek and deadly in the black spidersilk shirt and trousers.

Altaïr's attention rested on Li in calm scrutiny and not even Desmond could read much in his face.

"Stronger than she looks," Altaïr observed finally.

"Well, yeah," Desmond said. "That's the point, right? You can take her?"

Again, Altaïr didn't answer immediately and when he did, something in his tone made Desmond flinch. Altaïr said, "If I can't, would you send me back home?"

He gave Desmond no time to decipher what he had just said, the casual tone hiding something harsh and dark and terrible, because Altaïr would never go home. But it raised the question of what would become of him if he did _not _live up to everyone's expectation of him. Blackwatch might file him away as a valiant effort, perhaps let him burn himself up on some useless mission trying to stop the tide, rendering this version of Altaïr meaningless in the face of history.

Desmond glanced at him, watching his still face in profile for a moment before Altaïr left his seat and walked along the edge of the ring, meeting Benham and Li halfway. They exchanged a few words and Altaïr and Li shook hands before they walked to the centre of the open space.

There were probably proper training rings somewhere, Desmond thought, though that Altaïr's unofficial lessons in bladed weapons hadn't been allowed anywhere, but for this particular round to take place out in the open like that seemed strange. Altaïr had picked it, though, when Salinger had found him a few minutes before. He saw no reason to go anywhere else, for Altaïr, there was no reason to _hide _from the public, not in this place and for this particular display.

"That's Li?" Lucy asked when she appeared by Desmond's side. She was a little out of breath.

"Hey, didn't think you'd make it," Desmond chuckled a little.

"I was at the gate when I heard," she explained. "News travels pretty quickly around here."

"It'd be the odd soldier who doesn't like to gossip," Desmond said with a certainty he wasn't quite sure was his own. It was true, though, the same truth it had had centuries ago. Not everything changed.

"Anything interesting?" Desmond asked and though he could tell Lucy was reluctant to answer.

She said, "We may have a lead on Mercer. Or at least information about him."

Desmond glanced at her sidelong. "'We' do, huh? Not 'our great alliance does'?"

"We must wait and see," Lucy said, halfway distracted already by the fight. Desmond let it go, for now.

After he had stepped into the ring, Altaïr turned back around, facing Li. Closer now, Desmond could hear what they said.

"Unarmed?" Altaïr asked.

A slow smile crawled across Li's face. "I'm never unarmed."

Altaïr lifted his hands to show the bracers of the hidden blades. He was rarely without them and though some of the officers didn't much like the idea of them, no one had yet tried to forbid them. To Desmond, sometimes a little confused on these matters, asking Altaïr to take the blades off seemed both obscene and absurd.

Li made a small gesture with her hand, "I don't mind."

It gave Altaïr a moment's pause, considering the implication of the comment. It certainly wasn't the most reasonable sentiment, wanting to go into a fight with such a disadvantage. Unless, of course, she didn't think of it as such. D-Codes, unless they fought among themselves or faced the higher end infected, lacked opponents of equal strength, so perhaps she was simply used to offering others an edge.

The sparring began unremarkably enough, trading a few quick blows Li and Altaïr between them, easily blocked or evaded, meant to map out each other's speed and strength rather than truly test either. It allowed Desmond to _see _what Altaïr was doing for the first time, because although he was was upping the tempo gradually, he was not holding back this time, unlike against the soldiers and the view was something wildly different than watching as a shaky camera tried to track him.

Desmond felt his own muscles twitch and strain as he watched, remembering the movements he saw, the quick swipe of Altaïr's feet, the harsh, but adjustable grip of his hands. Desmond thought he could have gone through these motions with a dreamwalker's safety, but he was fairly sure he would stumble like a clumsy child if he tried to do it in reality.

He was barely paying attention to Li in those first few moments, too caught in the tangle of memories and he made a conscious effort to wrench himself back into himself. For the first time, Desmond thought he realised what Altaïr had meant when he had called Mercer 'slow', the label that had confused practically everyone. Desmond hadn't seen it in Altaïr, though the Assassin had mentioned it, but it was beginning to make sense now. _Slow _wasn't the right term, but there was a heaviness there, something more solid about the both of them, underlying each precise movement and altering the nature of even Altaïr's ruthless grace in some subtle way.

Altaïr caught Li in a quick hold and if this hadn't been a game, he could have used to dislodge her left arm or plunge a blade into her exposed side. As it was, he just held her and the moment seemed to last, though Desmond wasn't sure he could trust his perception. _Too long, _some ancient instinct insisted, and the light seemed to catch Altaïr's eyes and make them golden for a second, flaring bright and metallic and the game changed.

Altaïr finished the move he had started, pulling and twisting her arm to the snapping point, but Li had caught the change the moment Desmond had, and twisted free with an ease that would have been frightening, if Desmond had had the time to dwell on it. But Altaïr didn't let her go, didn't give her space, just enough so _he _could reach back and smash his fist into the side of her face so hard Desmond thought he felt the force of it from where he sat. Any normal opponent would have had a shattered jaw after this, but Li merely accommodated the blow. It exposed her throat to Altaïr's elbow, a blow that drove her back a step.

Altaïr didn't stop there, just picked up speed and ferocity, his body flowing through movements Desmond couldn't even have coordinated in slow motion, yet here, he was so fast, the eye could barely follow. And Li stayed with him, though noticeably on the defensive, blow and counterblow, sidestepping every attempt to trip her as if she had somehow managed to take root in the very ground to keep her upright.

This was no mockery of a fight anymore, it was the real thing, without any pretences or any quarter given. Desmond had seen it long ago, or at least felt like it, but the others around him realised it only gradually. Lucy was the first. Desmond heard her pull in her breath sharply, as if she was about to say something and than found herself shocked into silence. Desmond would have liked to look at her, but didn't dare take his eyes away from the fight.

In the ring, Altaïr faked an attack, until Li actually made a step forward to brace for it, but Altaïr instead backed away and used the new space to step down brutally into her knee with his full weight, actually making her buckle for the first time. He got hold of her arm again, flung out to steady herself, and yanked her around, using her own momentum against her and punched his fist into her side.

Desmond winced — kidneys were sensitive — but he was oddly tranquil in the face of it, enthralled by professional interest when it should have been personal concern. Lucy said his name in a tone of voice he had never heard her use before and jolted him from his revery.

"What's going on?" she added.

Desmond tore his attention away from the fight briefly to look over the rest of the audience. There had been some cheering in the beginning, but it was deadly silent now, broken only by the slap of flesh and cloth in the ring and the scrape of dust and dirt under the two fighters' boots.

Salinger had walked over to Benham, her face serious. Desmond didn't catch everything she said, but her posture was obvious. She wanted to interfere, or for Benham to do so. The General for his part, kept his gaze fixed on Altaïr and Li, face set in stony indifference as he shook his head.

Desmond knew what was going on, though he wasn't sure he could explain it. He could _pretend _to see with Altaïr's eyes, he could remember what it was like and sometimes he could summon some of it for himself. It hadn't been there before with Li, not in the beginning, before the fight had begun. She had seemed cocky, but not threatening, but something about her changed in the ring, the way she moved and fought, even what he could see of her face. She was a different person in the fight, someone else and even if Desmond lacked the ability to make much sense of it, Li was dangerous to anyone who was willing to see and in ways Desmond didn't know how to comprehend.

A low thud dragged Desmond's attention back fully. Li abandoned her earlier defensive strategy and actively fought back, matching Altaïr's moves in both speed and strength. She lacked his precision, but a low sweep of her leg brought Altaïr down to one knee and though he twisted to leap back up, she smashed her fist, knuckles-first into his spine between his shoulder blades.

"Desmond," Lucy said quietly, but with a quiver in her voice. He didn't know what she wanted him to do. Nothing could stop where this was going and Desmond would have told her as much, but he didn't think she would listen.

Altaïr buckled, forced to drop both hands to the ground so he didn't up flat on his face. He had to resort to roll aside from the inevitable kick for his stomach. In rolling, he caught hold of Li's boot and held it, turned and threw himself to the side with his entire weight, at least bringing Li down with him. Altaïr scrambled back on all fours, didn't waste time on getting back up, but instead leapt from there, like a great cat would.

On his left, Desmond heard Salinger say, "General, put a stop to this _right now._"

And Benham said, "No."

Still on her back, Li writhed in an effort to shake Altaïr until he knocked his elbow down in her face and stilled her for barely an instant, but long enough for him to pull himself back up, above her and get hold her wrists, pinning her upper arms with his legs, holding her down.

And then, Desmond _felt _rather than heard it, because the sound was too faint and he was too far away, but he knew the moment Altaïr engaged the perfect mechanism nestled in the bracers on his hands and the hidden blades came free, hissing like striking serpents tearing through silk, their edges sliding effortlessly through enhanced muscle and sinew and into the dirty ground, pinning Li where she lay.

Desmond could tell her complaisance wouldn't last. Leaving her useless hands where they were, she shifted her hips and legs and Altaïr noticed, adjusted his weight, but the tension along his shoulders revealed he knew he wouldn't be able to keep her restrained when she chose to shrug him off.

_"That's enough!_" Salinger shouted and Desmond noticed her as a dark shadow rushing into his field of vision from the left. He was up and by her side before he realised what was happening and _long _before he had time to think of what he was doing.

Altaïr snapped his head in her direction, eyes narrowed dangerously and teeth bared in a scowl. Without blinking, Altaïr shifted his gaze to Desmond, who had the impression he was supposed to share some form of kinship in that moment. Something _did _connect, but Desmond wasn't sure what it was, or whether he wanted it.

Li turned her head a little, looking up past the bulk of Altaïr above her and arched a thin brow, amusement, as if she didn't have two legendary blades through her hands. She let her head rest on the ground, tension unwinding from her body.

Altaïr relaxed by carefully controlled increment, pulling his baleful gaze back to Li's face as he first retracted the blades from her body and only then release her wrists. He got up in a practiced, levering movement and took a step aside, well out of Li's reach and stood silently for a moment. He looked at Desmond, again trying to communicate something that Desmond lacked the language to fully understand.

Altaïr turned around and walked away in a long-legged stride, giving no indication of strain from the fight just past.

Behind Desmond, Lucy came alive and after a moment's hesitation, hurried after Altaïr.

The rest of the audience was still watching in silence, unsure of what to make of this, still waiting for clues from their superiors how to interpret the situation.

"What the _ever-loving_ fuck?" Salinger said.

Li sat up, holding her hands in front of her. The hidden blade had cut through her wrist on the one hand and through the palm on the other, thick blood pooled around the narrow slashes and ran down her arms under her sleeves. She wriggled her fingers experimentally.

"Nice weapon," she said as she got up, giving Desmond a quicksilver grin before she focussed on Benham, who had appeared behind Salinger's shoulder.

"I think we can work with him," Li said.

Benham took a moment before he answered, perhaps as lost as everyone else. "Yes, so it seems," he said finally.

"What…?" Salinger started again.

"Lieutenant," Benham said, sharper now. "Get your shit together. And _never _ignore an order ever again. Am I clear?"

Salinger blinked, once, and then snapped to attention, "Sir."

This seemed to satisfy Benham. He looked at Li, watched her in silence and than said, "You should get your hands looked at."

"Yeah," she agreed mildly. "I should."

Without any further word, she turned and walked away in the opposite direction of where Altaïr had gone.

With her gone, the makeshift training ring seemed utterly abandoned, an open and empty space with kicked-up dust dancing lazily in the air and only a few odd marks on the ground to map the events just past. Desmond stared at the empty spot, where the hidden blades had cut into the ground, trying to figure out what was amiss.

* * *

Desmond left Salinger and Benham to deal with the increasingly agitated audience. Desmond heard the slow murmuring voices rising behind him as he hurried after Altaïr and Lucy. Desmond wondered briefly what the soldiers would make of what they had seen, but only so he didn't have to figure out what he thought of it himself. And it didn't feel _finished _either. Altaïr hadn't just retreated, he had had a purpose and something he needed to do and in light of what had just passed, Desmond didn't know whether it could be good.

Each thought left Desmond more disquieted than the one preceding it, made him walk faster with each breathe until he was running by the time he reached the tent he shared with the others.

The tent flap was open, but blocked by Lucy, who stood framed by weathered canvas and she was agitated, something between anger and fear. Her shoulders were tense and as Desmond approached, she reached out with both hands and gripped the tent on either side of her.

"You aren't going anywhere," Lucy said. "Not before you tell me what's going on here."

Her voice was shaking, but it did nothing to lessen the determination in it. Every fibre of her was focused on Altaïr, standing right in front of her and looking down from the shadow of his hood.

Desmond called Lucy's name, so he didn't startle her when he suddenly stood at her back. He looked over her shoulder at Altaïr and had a momentary, sheer and utter admiration for Lucy's courage. Nothing Desmond had experienced in the Animus had prepared him for facing Altaïr like this. No kill he had committed with those hands, no remembered and suppressed thrill at the power it gave him. Desmond had thought Altaïr had been murderous that first night in Rome, when he had punched the door in, but he had not meant to hurt Desmond then. But now, the killer stood before them and he was a frightening sight.

"Let me through," Altaïr said lowly, barely more than a snarl. He wore the high tech armour, even the sword on his hip and charged hidden blades on his wrists and the edge of a crossbow peaked over his shoulder.

"You know I can't," Lucy insisted, her hands tightening their grip on the canvas.

Desmond felt Altaïr's gaze pass over him, but the shadow of the hood was too deep and he couldn't see much of his expression, but he wouldn't have made sense of it, even if he had.

"Altaïr…" Desmond said in what he hoped was a calm, reasonable tone. He didn't think it would make a difference.

Desmond had time to detect the minuscule shift in balance before Altaïr moved, but he wouldn't have known how to interfere.

Altaïr shot his arm up and wrapped long fingers around Lucy's throat, lifting her until she was forced to her toes, dragging the canvas around her. She sucked in a sharp, shocked breath before it was taken away. She made a small, involuntary movement, leaning her head back in an ineffective attempt to free herself. Altaïr put his head slightly to the side, just _so, _like a curious raptor watching its prey struggle.

He changed his hold on her, shifted his fingers and simply lifted her aside. Choked, Lucy let go of the canvas as her hands flew around to grip at Altaïr's wrist, fumbling for some way to loosen the grip. Altaïr sat her back down, didn't even look at her or Desmond, who hastily stepped out of his way.

Altaïr stopped again, glanced over his shoulder and said, "Stay here."

"Shit," Desmond said, watching Altaïr leave, then turned his attention to Lucy. "Are you okay?"

She was flustered and wide-eyed, her fingers carefully tracing the breadth of her throat. Altaïr had left pale white imprints on her flesh that would soon discolour into bruises. With visible effort, Lucy composed herself and straightened, took her hand away from her own throat. She turned away. "We can't let him go off and do… whatever the hell he wants!"

She frowned at Desmond, "What's gotten into him?"

Desmond hesitated, looking to where Altaïr had gone, then back at Lucy. "It's… you know Eagle Vision, right? I don't understand it the way he does. I don't have it, at least not all the time. Sometimes, I recognise things, or I remember them, I don't know. But he sees more than I do."

He shook his head. "For the life of me, I can't see something wrong with you, for example. But I can see there is something deeply wrong about Li. When they fought, it was like she became a different person."

Lucy breathed for a moment, searching his face for something more. Than she narrowed her eyes. "What do you mean? You can't see something wrong with me?"

Desmond sighed, closed his eyes for a moment and when he opened them again, he looked away from Lucy and stepped into the tent. He rubbed the side of his face and let himself drop gracelessly onto the couch in the corner.

Lucy followed him only as far as the door. He could tell she hadn't quite given up going after Altaïr, but the very fact that she hadn't done it yet revealed her reluctance to do so.

"Desmond?"

"It's something Altaïr said," he said. "Right after he woke up. I told him we were Assassins and he counted them off. Rebecca and Shaun. Me? Not so much. He said you aren't sure."

He saw her process that information ever so slowly, he could actually trace her lines of thoughts in her face, leaving imprint of a pain far different from her sore throat and cutting far deeper. She cast another look where Altaïr had gone and another realisation overtook the first. If Altaïr did not see her fully as an ally, trying to stop him just now had been far riskier than she had known.

"I'm not a traitor, it that's what you're saying," Lucy told Desmond.

For some reason, it took Desmond a moment to take pity on her. Eventually, he said, "But perhaps you aren't fully an Assassin either. Not by Altaïr's measure, anyway."

It seemed to assuage her somewhat and she relaxed her body, giving up any plans of following Altaïr after all. She came fully into the tent and finally dropped on the couch at Desmond's side, letting her head fall back.

"Throw me a line, Desmond," Lucy said.

"If I knew how to explain it, I would, I promise. But…"

Desmond stopped himself. He didn't like where his own reasoning was going to go and what they would do if he made it real by saying it out aloud.

"Look at the pieces," he finally tried. "All of them. Mercer not being seen in forever, Benham probably in league with him and now Altaïr completely loses it. There is also the bit where everyone and their dog thinks Specialist Li is a complete wierdo."

"You think Li isn't human," Lucy said. "That she's a mutant made by Mercer, working with Benham."

Desmond took a slow breath.

"No, that's not what I'm saying," he finally forced through his teeth. "Not when I'm honest."

"What _are _you saying?" exasperation came into Lucy's voice and she lifted her head back up from the couch to look at Desmond from narrowing eyes.

"God, Lucy," Desmond groaned. "Isn't it obvious? I mean it is, right from the moment where Altaïr skewered her hands and she managed not to leave any bloodstains on the ground. From the moment Altaïr got _this _murderous about something. I think Li actually _is_ Mercer, that's what I think. I can't be the only one."

Or perhaps he was and what he had just told Lucy took her completely unawares, picked her up and hurled her from all the certainty she had managed to sustain until now. He wasn't sure what her sudden silence meant, but her body tensed so hard, it travelled the length of the couch, crawled up through Desmond's skin and set his teeth on edge.

* * *

The late afternoon that had witnessed the fight between Altaïr and Li was fading into a dull, steely grey evening and a night with the first scent of snow in the air. Floodlights covered parts of the camp, while others were left to tiny pricks of brightness from smaller lamps, cutting through the darkness in their artificial hues. The tents' shadows had a different quality than those cast by the housing containers. The solidity of their metal made even their shadows fall on the ground with added weight.

Li was quartered with the other officers and the area of the camp was set apart from the rest, close to the command centre and surrounded by a periphery of lights, forcing Altaïr to judge his steps carefully as he approached, wary to raise suspicions. He couldn't trust Lucy and Desmond to do what he told them. They would mean well, even when their interference was bound to make everything worse.

Leaning his shoulder into the side of the container, Altaïr waited and studied his surrounding. He had no illusions about staying hidden forever, but for now, shadows lapped at his feet and wrapped around his shoulders and they were oddly comforting. Familiar warmth on a cold, foreign battlefield.

Li had never gone to see a physician, but he had not expected her to. Instead, she had changed direction and went back to the command centre, where Benham joined her soon after. They talked, but Altaïr was too far away to listen in, and then Benham had given Li a computer and a stack of files.

She carried both now as she made her way to the container, crossing light and darkness with equal carelessness. Nothing about her gave her away again, like the first time he had seen her. An illusion far more perfect than anything Al Mualim had ever contrived, but just like those images, Li's masquerade failed to stand up to the blade.

Li stopped by her door, tucked the files under one arm and pulled a key from her pocket. As she unlocked the door, Altaïr detached himself from the wall and took a step out in the open, well beyond where her field of vision could pick him up and his feet made no sound in the dust.

But Li flicked her gaze to the side, turning her head to follow. Light danced on her face, formed and reformed the outlines of her features with the movement and the edge of a smile she wore.

"Periphas," Li greeted him, low in her throat, not without mockery. She let go of the key and stepped away from the door, turned and faced him across an expanse of empty air and dust. "The king of the eagles."

This time, it was Li who let go of the illusion until nothing remained of the woman she pretended to be, but the shell, the surface of it, reflecting the light and soaking up the darkness.

"I know who you are," Altaïr said.

"Who am I?"

Altaïr watched her, waiting for her to shed the last skin, but there was no giving in from her.

"You are the plague carrier. The one the soldiers call Zeus, who used to be a man named Alex Mercer," Altaïr said quietly, matching her tone and even her mockery. "The fight reveals you."

Li chuckled. She looked up and around, then put her head to the side in a gesture of invitation. "Let's go inside," she said and reached for the door, making the key click in the lock, the loudest sound there had been since this encounter had begun.

_Inside_ was too small, a tiny room with a narrow bed and an empty table above a metal chair. White light glared from a single point in the ceiling and as Li passed under it, she cast her shadow in all direction, painting the walls. A multitude of wavering images of her, beginning to writhe as she passed and turned, her features lost their cohesion and her body wrapped itself in bloodied-black tendril, dissolving and reforming, shaking free of the constraints of Li's form to stand in his true shape, all illusions falling away as if they had never been.

"You are afraid," Altaïr said and the quick, reflexive frown across what the hood revealed of Mercer's face, betrayed his surprise.

"You avoid the fight," Altaïr continued. "You hide. They tell me there have been two other plagues like this one."

"Not like this one," Mercer interrupted. _"Nothing's _like this one."

"But you are never seen," Altaïr said. "Even now, you hide from the eyes of the cameras, when you _know _it is only your ally who will watch. What other conclusion should I draw?"

Mercer discarded the computer and the files, undisturbed in his hands throughout the change. He looked at Altaïr and irritation coloured his voice. "What's this?" he asked. "Talking the monster to death?"

He put a hand to his chest. "My deepest fears revealed," he chuckled. "I'm so hurt. Why don't you try your needles?"

Altaïr had stopped just inside the door after he had snapped it closed behind him. Now he took two steps away from it, turned on his heels and back, he had no more room than this to pace. He kept his gaze fixed on Mercer as he executed the movement, mapping out the small room into two separate areas of neatly defined personal space. While it wasn't breached, they could talk without forcing something too close to submission from either man or monster.

"There is something I do not yet understand," Altaïr answered.

"Really?" Mercer drawled. He put his hands in the pockets of his jeans and stood like any normal man would in a normal place. The light only caught his chin and the side of his jaw, carving out fine lines from the edge of his mouth downward. "You know you won't get to live, do you?"

Altaïr never stopped his tight pacing. "Why are you doing this?"

Mercer chuckled again. "Why do you think?"

A smirk tugged at the corners of Altaïr's mouth. "Not the plague. But why are you holding _back? _Why is there a Red Border in the sand at all? Why is this entire continent not your hands?"

"You _are _trying to talk me to death," Mercer said, but the amusement was fading. "I got a question for you. Why come here and talk? You should've brought the camp down on me."

"Because I would just sacrifice them all," Altaïr replied. "And because you are listening. I have good reasons for what I do, but you will have to take them on faith. You do not know where I come from and what I did there. You do not need to know."

"Secrets," Mercer sneered. "I got a way with them."

"And yet you are still listening," Altaïr said. He stopped his pacing finally and came to face Mercer. The glare of the lamp broke itself on the shadow of his hood.

"I'm listening," Mercer agreed with obvious misgiving. "But I'm beginning to recall one of my worse mistakes." His voice took on a sharper edge, full of shards and seething anger underneath. "Get to the point."

"I am," Altaïr said. His own calm was slipping, the vicinity of a dangerous enemy making his fingers itch with the urge to spring the blade, to leap and fall on him, even if there was just one way such a fight would go. "I want to understand all of this. I will not fight again before I do."

"You don't trust your own people," Mercer said as interest temporarily replaced his mounting impatience.

"I do not trust anyone who wants me to kill for them."

Mercer tilted his head back a little, just enough for his eyes to spark in a freezing blue. "Your point," he said.

Altaïr shook his head. "No, it is out of my hands now. There is more at play here than I know," he paused for a moment. "More than even you know, I suspect. You can kill me and I will not make it easy for you and I will go down regardless."

Mercer just moved his head slightly, showing the tips of his teeth in an ugly smile. He had changed his posture at all, but the room seemed to shrink around them, constricting under the wire-thin tension, waiting for the moment to snap and unravel and tear into both of them.

Altaïr stood taller than Mercer and he had brought himself close enough for it to show, adding its own tenuous weight to the precarious balance. It was a dangerous gamble in the face of the destruction Mercer was willing and able to inflict. If Altaïr appeared too much like an enemy or too much like prey, Mercer would just take him. All he had to do was hold himself, unflinching, on the dividing line between.

"Or," Altaïr finished. "_Or_ we keep talking."

* * *

**References**

_"You've got quite the taste for chaos, Altaïr."_ — Maria (The Secret Crusade, Oliver Bowden)

_Periphas_ — a king of Athens who was turned into an eagle by, wait for it, Zeus.


End file.
